Slough Council's Five Years Under Government Control Were Due to End Next Month. Ministers Have Just Proposed Three More Years of It.
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
In short. Slough Borough Council's government-appointed commissioners were due to hand back full control of the council on 30 November 2026, five years after they arrived. On 15 October 2026 the government published the commissioners' own eighth report, an independent external review of the intervention, and a letter from local government minister Jim McMahon stating he is "minded to" extend the intervention to 30 November 2029 instead [1]. The council has until 28 October to make representations before a final decision is announced [1]. This site flagged the decision as outstanding when it reported on two other councils' Best Value Notices on 12 September; it has now landed [2].
What the minister has proposed
Slough Borough Council issued a section 114 notice, the formal declaration that spending cannot be met from available resources, on 2 July 2021 [3]. The government appointed commissioners that December, taking direct control of the council's finances, senior appointments and governance under the Local Government Act 1999 after an assurance review found the council had failed its Best Value Duty in multiple ways [4]. That intervention was extended by two years in November 2024, setting the current end date of 30 November 2026 [5]. With that date six weeks away, the department has now set out what it thinks of the five years so far, and what it wants to do next.
Jim McMahon, the minister for local government, devolution and regional growth, wrote to council leader Cllr Wal Chahal on 15 October setting out his position in direct terms: having considered the commissioners' eighth report, an external review of the whole intervention, and other evidence, "I have concluded that the Authority is not yet meeting its Best Value Duty" [1]. He is minded to use his powers under section 15 of the 1999 Act to issue new Directions setting a new end date of 30 November 2029 and refreshing the commissioner team: a Lead Commissioner, Managing Director Commissioner and Finance Commissioner as before, plus a new, jointly appointed SEND and Children's Services Commissioner shared with the Department for Education, supported by a political adviser [1]. Nothing in the letter is final. The council and its statutory officers have been invited to make representations by Wednesday 28 October, to be "carefully considered before a final decision is taken and announced" [1].
What the commissioners found after four years
The commissioners' own account, published the same day, does not read as an institution close to standing on its own. Progress has been made, they write, but "the 'step change' called for in Commissioners' Seventh Report has not been achieved," and recovery "remains uneven and fragile" [6]. The sharpest line in the report concerns the one service area where independent inspectors, not commissioners, have the final word: "The recent Inspection of Local Authority Children's Services judged services to be 'Inadequate' across all four main measures" [6]. The commissioners note the council had already changed the leadership of the service ahead of that inspection, but say there had been "insufficient time to address the deep-rooted problems identified" [6].
Housing and youth justice carry their own separate warnings. In summer 2025 the Regulator of Social Housing gave the council a C3 consumer grading, the report says, "reflecting serious failings in its landlord responsibilities" [6]. The Youth Justice Service was rated inadequate in January 2025, and while the commissioners note momentum has picked up over the past five months, they describe improvement as "fragile and subject to close Youth Justice Board scrutiny," with the next HM Inspectorate of Probation inspection due in the autumn [6].
The money has not stabilised either. The commissioners record an indicative first-quarter overspend of around 20 million pounds for 2026/27, driven mainly by rising costs in children's social care and temporary accommodation [6]. General fund reserves stood at 27 million pounds at the end of March 2026, of which only 11 million pounds was unallocated [6]. External debt stood at 470 million pounds the same month, and the council's cumulative Exceptional Financial Support, government loans that let it balance a budget it otherwise could not, is expected to reach 417 million pounds by March 2028, a figure the commissioners say will rise further "without specific significant actions" [6]. An asset disposal programme is pencilled in to raise around 307 million pounds, but the commissioners caution that due diligence suggests little further income can be assumed beyond that figure [6].
A council that has learned to lean on its commissioners
The independent external review, led by Dame Mary Ney with Will Godfrey and commissioned by ministers in March 2026 specifically because the intervention appeared to be "plateauing," goes further than the commissioners' own report in naming the underlying problem [7]. It identifies "an overreliance on Commissioners to be decision-makers, to solve problems and to provide reassurance," which the review says has produced "a sense of helplessness and fatigue within the council" [7]. Four years of being run, in significant part, by people the council did not appoint and cannot remove has left the organisation without "a shared understanding of what specifically needs to improve and be evidenced in order to end intervention," the review finds, and staff and members report "a lack of confidence, sense of low self-worth and helplessness" [7].
The review's recommendation is not simply more of the same. It argues for a "stepped back Commissioner regime to empower the council and build confidence," reorganised around the single joint MHCLG and Department for Education team McMahon's letter goes on to propose, with the explicit aim of signalling "a change of direction" and giving the council a realistic route to exit within roughly two years if improvement criteria are met [7]. That is a narrower ambition than the three-year legal end date the minister's letter sets. A Direction running to November 2029 is the outer limit the government is prepared to commit to in writing; the review's own hoped-for exit, around two years from now, is not.
What is still open
Nothing here is decided. The minister's letter is explicit that he is "minded to" act, not that he has acted, and the council's statutory right to make representations before any final Direction is issued is set out in the letter's own annex [1]. Slough Borough Council's own news pages, checked on 22 October, do not yet carry a statement responding to the proposal, so this site cannot yet report how the council itself characterises a three-year extension it did not ask for in these terms. What the documents published on 15 October do establish, without needing anyone's spin, is the gap between where the intervention was supposed to be by now and where it is: a council whose commissioners were meant to be packing up next month, instead facing years more of outside control, over services an independent inspectorate rates as failing children on every measure that counts.
Sources
- Jim McMahon MP, letter to Cllr Wal Chahal, Leader of Slough Borough Council, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (15 October 2026). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6acf8e3d71dbe79328fd4550/Slough_Letter_to_Leader.pdf
- Civic Scrutiny, "Shropshire Council and a London Borough Received Almost Word-for-Word Warning Letters From Whitehall on the Same Day. Only the Name at the Top Changed." (12 September 2026). https://www.civic-scrutiny.co.uk/2026-updates/shropshire-hillingdon-best-value-notices.html
- Slough Borough Council, section 114 notice (2 July 2021). https://www.slough.gov.uk/downloads/file/2040/slough-s114-notice-2-july-2021
- GOV.UK, "Intervention at Slough Borough Council" (collection). https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/intervention-at-slough-borough-council
- GOV.UK, "Slough Borough Council: Directions made under the Local Government Act 1999, 20 November 2024". https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/slough-borough-council-directions-made-under-the-local-government-act-1999-20-november-2024
- Slough Borough Council Commissioners, "Commissioners' Eighth Report", Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (15 October 2026). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6acddb2ab8542d3693fd4381/Slough_Commissioner_8th_Report.pdf
- Dame Mary Ney and Will Godfrey, "Report of the review into the Slough Borough Council intervention", GOV.UK (15 October 2026). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/slough-borough-council-external-review-into-intervention-at-slough-borough-council/report-of-the-review-into-the-slough-borough-council-intervention