Hillingdon Council’s December Cabinet meeting should unveil the draft 2026/27 Budget ahead of its public consultation opening. As with all public meetings held at the Civic Centre, the papers making up the Agenda bundle should be published a week before the meeting.
The 2026/27 Budget was not part of the papers when they were published on the afternoon of Monday 15th December, instead they were marked “to follow”.
The meeting starts at 19:00 on Tuesday 23rd December, and as at 22:30 on Monday 22nd December, the Budget was still not available. This disregards the ‘five clear days’ rule set out in the Constitution:
The Council will make copies of the agenda and reports open to the public available for inspection at the designated office and Council website at least five clear days before the meeting.
Even if they use the urgency clause, it could be argued that this would be an abuse of the system by applying it for the main Budget – which is the most predictable procedural item of the year.
Not the first time financial papers have been late
In November, the Monthly Council Budget Monitoring Report for Month 6 was not included in the papers when they were published ahead of the meeting on 20th November. Following that delay – by which time it was two days late – we wrote to the then-Cabinet Member for Finance Cllr Martin Goddard, the Head of Democratic Services and then-Monitoring Officer Lloyd White, the Chief Finance Officer Steve Muldoon and the Council’s Chief Executive Officer Tony Zaman to express our concerns and to ask why.
Mr Muldoon and Mr Zaman again chose not to respond, but Mr White responded to explain that having reports marked ‘to follow’ is “not an unusual occurrence” and that the delay had been agreed by the Chair of the Cabinet, Leader Cllr Ian Edwards.
Mr White argued that the responsibility lies with elected Members to determine if they have had sufficient time to consider the information, rather than adhering strictly to the publication deadline.
At the time of course, the report in question was submitted three clear days (and the weekend) ahead of the November meeting, while this time we are less than 22 hours before the meeting and it has still not been published.
In November, Mr White explained that the Chief Executive Tony Zaman had instructed officers to keep such incidents to a minimum, yet here we are in December without the Budget for next year – the day before the meeting.
Could Cabinet Members realistically have time to consider the final draft budget?
Watch the meeting
The meeting is scheduled to start at 19:00 on Tuesday 23rd December, and will be live streamed by the Council.
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