North Somerset Council faces £50m budget gap over the next four years
The shortfall has been called 'particularly stark'
North Somerset Council is facing a “particularly stark” financial situation due to a £50m budget gap over the next four years and a £2m overspend on its current budget.
The council is yet again facing a £17m black hole in its budget for the next financial year meaning more cuts and savings will need to be identified.
Council leader Mike Bell told a meeting of the council’s executive on September 6: “This is not a unique or exceptional circumstance. This has been par for the course year after year after year. So this is not an easy challenge for us to rise to at all.”
The council faced a similar budget gap last year, triggering millions of pounds of cuts and savings, which saw Backwell Recycling Centre narrowly escape being closed down to save £300k.
Now the council is predicting a budget gap of £17.2 in 2024/25, and in subsequent years of £14m, £9.5m, and £9.9m — meaning the council would have to find just over £50m over the next four years.
The public are being asked to have their say on how the council tackles the cuts and savings through a consultation on the council’s budget. Further consultations will be run from mid-October.
Mr Bell said: “We are particularly keen to hear from communities and to encourage residents and businesses and other partners and stakeholders to engage in that process and let us have your views about what’s most important to you to inform our budget choices and the decisions we have to make over the next few months.”
He said that he wanted to protect frontline services as much as the council could, and balance the books.
But the council is also facing a net overspend in the current financial year, for which more savings will need to be found. Mr Bell said: “Although we are forecasting a net overspend that in the context of the budget — at about 1% — is small, we are still talking about £2m forecast overspend for the end of the financial year.
“We know that local government finance has been in the news this week in terms of the challenges that have been experienced with Birmingham City Council and I think anyone that has been involved in, a user of a service, or a partner of North Somerset Council, will know that we have effectively had a decade or more of austerity in local government where our financial pressures have been really significant.”
Birmingham City Council, which is the largest local authority in the country, issued a section 114 notice this week after being unable to meet costs, meaning that all spending aside from essential statutory services and protecting the vulnerable must immediately stop.
North Somerset Council’s director of corporate services at the council, Amy Webb, said: “We are not in a similar financial territory at this stage, and we do have resources in terms of our risk management mitigations.”
However, she said that inflation meant that the pressures on the council were still “particularly stark.”
Mr Bell insisted that the council was still “high-performing.” He said: “Council tax is lower here than the average, our average spend per head is lower here than the average, the amount of grant we get from government is lower than average, and yet our outcomes across the board in terms of services are strong and improving.”
You can respond to the council’s consultation on its corporate plan and budget here: https://n-somerset.inconsult.uk/corporateplan/consultationHome