Reading Council Faces £3 Million Overspend Crisis

Reading council ended the 2025/26 year with multi-million-pound overspends, a Quarter 4 report shows.

The report said the general fund - which pays for day-to-day services - was £3.115 million over budget for January to March 2026.

At a policy committee meeting, parties traded blame. Rob White (Green, Park), leader of the main opposition party on the council, said: "There is a £3 million overspend, which is obviously concerning.

"It says to me we've had a change of government, and we're still in the situation where the council is under such severe pressure, year on year, services are having to make cuts, 75 per cent of them were delivered, 25 per cent weren't.

"It's just harder and harder for council officers every year.

"If the government were to fund local authorities properly, then that would make life loads easier."

Cllr Raj Singh (Conservative, Kentwood) also pointed to a £3.403 million overspend in the Housing Revenue Account, which is ring-fenced from the general fund.

Replying, Matt Yeo (Labour, Caversham), lead councillor for housing, said: "There has been a lot of work going into the housing repair service.

The emergency repairs that you have to do immediately are at 100 per cent for last month, there is a serious improvement to the housing repair service, but it comes at a cost, and that's what the overall story is."

Cllr Singh also flagged a dedicated schools grant deficit of £46.935 million. Rachel Eden (Labour, Whitley), lead councillor for education, said: "I'm quite astonished that cllr Singh felt he wanted to point that out, given that it was his government that led us to get into this mess in the first place, it is quite unbelievable that every council across the country was put into this position by ministers of the Conservative government."

Councillors approved measures to address the gaps: fund the £3.115 million general fund overspend from the council's financial resilience fund and cover the housing account by drawing £9.755 million from reserves.

Those measures were unanimously approved at the policy committee meeting on Monday, July 13.

James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporter