Political battle lines drawn as West Oxfordshire District Council move forward with budget proposals for new year

Councillor Dan Levy, the council's cabinet member for finance, rued the lack of control districts have over revenue generation during an address at a cabinet meeting held at Woodstock Community Centre.

He also accused the previous Conservative administration, which lost control following the elections in May 2022, of “putting off” the £1 million roof repair at Chipping Norton Leisure Centre which is programmed in for the 2023-24 financial year.

Latest projections, updated on the back of the council’s annual settlement, the funding it receives from central government, show West Oxfordshire currently anticipates balancing the books with a £345,000 surplus.

However, that is without more than £1 million worth of growth requests, including £676,000 for 20 permanent staff posts that it plans to initially fund by delving into savings, new money that would have to be found each year moving forward.

Cllr Levy detailed how the council was “always conscious of just how precarious” government funding is.

“There is always the danger that business rates will be reviewed in the wrong way, that the New Homes Bonus stops being awarded or it becomes much less, and what is currently described as the funding guarantee grant be less generous,” he said.

“The medium term financial strategy reflects this danger. We have healthy reserves and will endeavour to keep that situation into the future.

“To put that into context, very little of our income is through our own fees and taxes. I would, of course, like that to change but that primarily requires a change to government policy.

“For example, we have the ability to increase council tax by a maximum of three per cent this year, or £5.

“Council tax here in West Oxfordshire has been very low for a long period so we can only increase tax by £5 – that is less than the rate of inflation and not enough to make a substantial difference. Other headwinds include high inflation and the difficult state of the leisure market.”

Cllr Levy then turned to matters he considered to be inherited from the Conservatives.

“There are specific local issues, some of which have been caused by the previous administration, understandably but regrettably putting off difficult, expensive and very necessary work such as updating council facilities to permit streaming of meetings and mending the roof at Chipping Norton Leisure Centre,” he added.

“To misquote a Conservative minister, the Tories literally didn’t mend the roof when the sun was shining.”

Councillor Michele Mead, who was leader of the council until May and attended with two Tory colleagues, did not respond verbally but shook her head.

Cllr Levy added: “Over the next year we will need to take difficult decisions about some areas of our delivery to save money and improve performance.”