To tackle the challenges of inflation, increasing demand for services, high interest rates and inadequate core funding from central government, councils across the land have been obliged to make often painful savings.

We all hope that the immediate financial crisis will abate and that the extraordinary pressure that councils have experienced over the last eighteen months will ease.

But battening down the hatches and hoping for better times is not the way forward.

The current government is unlikely to start giving councils significantly more money. Even a different government, more well-disposed to the public sector, is not going to have limitless resources to make up the massive gap between what local government needs and what it receives.

So how do we plan for an uncertain future at Wokingham Borough Council? 

We will do all we can to improve efficiency and use inventive methods to deliver services at lower cost. But these measures will only take us so far. The main way we can survive is by working more closely with others.

READ MORE: Wokingham schools budget £10 million overspent due to SEND pressure

The council must continue to use its resources to support key services.

But in the future we will have to pool our efforts with those of other bodies - whether that's other Berkshire unitary councils, town and parish councils in the borough, the voluntary and charitable sector, businesses, the NHS, police and fire services, and schools and universities

This is not about offloading responsibilities. It’s about working alongside others to produce the outcomes that we all want for our community.

To me, this is the future and it has many virtues. We move away from the 'council-knows-best' approach, and by working closely with other bodies gain much more insight into hwo to tackle problems.

The community, not just the council, finds the solutions. We achieve more together than we can on our own.