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Council faced with ?50 million budget gap next year
nottingham
As the crisis in local government funding continues to affect councils across the country, we face a ?50 million gap in our budget next year, 2024/25, which will have a major impact on services.
A report to the council?s Executive Board on 19 December sets out a range of initial proposals put forward by council officers to make the savings needed to close the budget gap and balance the budget for 2024/25, which is a legal requirement for all councils.
Last month, our chief finance officer issued a Section 114 Report due to the council not being able to deliver a balanced budget for the current year.
Today I have been doing interviews with local media such as BBC Radio Nottingham, East Midlands Today, Notts TV, Nottingham Post and ITV to explain how major pressures affecting local government nationally, including the cost of increased demand for children?s and adults? social care and rising homelessness presentations, have led to a ?23 million overspend this year and whilst we are working hard to reduce this through enhanced spending controls, some of these underlying pressures will continue to affect the budget next year.
Last year, services for adults, children and housing and homelessness accounted for 62.5% of the council?s revenue budget.
Since 2013/14, the council?s Revenue Support Grant (RSG) from Government has reduced by ?97 million every year.
Over the same period, Nottingham?s ?Core Spending Power?, a measure used by Government which also includes income from Council Tax, business rates and other grants, has reduced by 28.2% in real terms compared to 19.4% for all councils in England, according to SIGOMA, the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities.
Although not the cause of the overspend in the current year, past issues in the council?s financial governance which led to the appointment of an Improvement and Assurance Board have reduced our financial resilience and ability to draw on reserves.?
In order to bridge the large budget gap faced, officers have put forward proposals for consideration by councillors which will be subject to public consultation. These are not things we want to do and certainly not things I became a councillor to do but many may be necessary to meet the scale of the financial challenge.
These proposals involve managing demand, increasing charges, reducing costs, reducing services to a statutory minimum and in some cases ceasing services and funding altogether. ?
After the initial proposals have been considered by councillors at the meeting on 19 December, a public consultation will take place before any final decisions are made when the budget for 2024/25 is set in February.
I want to be open and transparent about the scale of the challenge the council faces and the difficult decisions that need to be made. We?ll provide more details on how people can have their say in the coming days.
A full list of the proposals can be viewed in the appendices to the Executive Board report _here_ [ [link removed] ]but they include:
* Reviewing Library Service provision whilst maintaining a comprehensive and efficient service offer appropriate to the needs of our citizens.
* Removing the council contribution towards Area Based Grants to the voluntary and charity sector and grants to arts organisations and cultural sector
* Reducing both the Community Protection and Resident Development services. The requirement to deliver duties relating to environmental enforcement and antisocial behaviour will be met.
* Reviewing the operation of community centres and seek to remove council subsidised grants
* Reducing public transport infrastructure to minimum statutory provision including the removal of funding to operate two bus-based park and ride sites, Victoria Bus Station and the real time passenger information system.
* Reducing all linkbus services to statutory minimum provision, removing Easylink and withdrawing the funding contribution to the Medilink service
* Moving to the minimum statutory provision of Concessionary Fares for which would remove the concession from the tram and companion pass holders and funding for managing the Robin Hood Scheme.
* A reduction in council staffing levels of over 500 full-time equivalent posts. Every effort will be made to limit compulsory redundancies through targeted voluntary redundancy.
* a proposed Council Tax increase of 4.99% which includes the 2% Adult Social Care precept permitted by the Government
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Section 114 Report [ [link removed] ]
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