Derbyshire County Council plans further cutbacks as it faces £18.6m budget black hole
The Conservative-run authority has already been forced to make savings this financial year
Derbyshire County Council is preparing for more controversial saving cutbacks after predicting an £18.6m budget shortfall for the 2025/26 financial year.
The Conservative-led council has already been rolling out saving proposals to manage a budget deficit of over £39m for the 2024/25 financial year after blaming reduced Government funding, the impact from the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, higher prices, rising costs, the national pay award and the growing demand for adults’ and children’s social care services.
Its current forecast overspend for the current 2024/25 financial year stands at £28.1m after a series of unpopular cuts to services and the council has now predicted a shortfall in its budget for the 2025/26 financial year of £18.6m which will mean further, new savings proposals.
Council Leader, Cllr Barry Lewis, said: “During the course of the year we have made no secret of the fact that the pressures on our budget continue to mount due to costs and demand which are beyond our control.
“However, we are in a better space now than we were this time last year and the solid savings plan we put in place at the beginning of 2024 is on track to achieve its target.
“We are continuing to build on this good work to ensure we set a balanced budget for the year ahead.
“While we have made a step change in the way we identify and deliver savings, the pressures keep increasing, so we are focussing on ways to reduce those pressures and also fundamentally changing our operating model, including automating and digitising support services where we can.
“The situation around adults and children’s social care is serious for all councils but we are taking action to challenge how we deliver it, and also working as ‘One Council’ to bring functions together and challenge all day-to-day expenditure.”
Controversial changes to council services have already included agreeing to close ten children’s centres, closing and selling eight residential care homes, and closing five day centres for the elderly after blaming high demand and cost pressures across social care.
It has also recently agreed to end two types of Discretionary Grant Funding including Adult Social Care Discretionary Grant Funding and Corporate Services and Transformation Discretionary Grant Funding by March, 2025, which means 50 community and voluntary groups now face £1.106m of funding cuts.
Opposition Labour Group Leader, Cllr Joan Dixon, has accused the authority of placing the council on the edge of bankruptcy and opposition Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors have challenged many of the Conservative council’s decisions.
And after revealing its latest plans on December 31 in a Cabinet report It is now proposing that its 2025/26 funding shortfall of £18.6m will be met from £17.5m savings options and from £1.1m departmental efficiencies.
However, the council claims its robust savings plan has been formulated to support setting a balanced budget for 2025/26 with a number of new savings proposals that, if agreed, would save the authority millions of pounds and help to balance its books for 2025/2026.
The latest savings proposals follow a significant savings plan for 2024/25 which the council says will achieve £31.9m of savings by the end of the current financial year on March 31, 2025, and the council claims it will continue to deliver a further £18.9m of savings in 2025/26.
Following an announcement in December that the council’s forecast overspend for the current financial year totalled £28.1m measures were put in place to help bring the council’s forecast overspend for the current financial year of £28.1m under control.
These included managing staff vacancies where appropriate including pausing recruitment, reviewing vacant posts and freezing or deleting them, reviewing the use of agency workers to reduce costs, and reducing expenditure on procurement to only spend money on essential areas.
The council is also reviewing how it operates to reduce costs through efficiency, rationalisation and improvement.
Cllr Simon Spencer, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services and Budget, said: “These are still incredibly challenging times not only for our council but authorities across the country and I want to reassure our residents that we are facing these challenges head-on and doing what we can to ensure we balance our books while coming up with new ways to ensure we are operating in the most efficient and effective way possible.
“Our robust financial planning goes alongside other measures we are taking to ensure a strong future for this council and the services it provides to those who need them most.”
The latest budget savings proposals for 2025/26 due to be considered and agreed upon include: The use of AI tools to streamline and automate planning for adult social care; A review of current extra-care housing schemes; Centralisation and redesign of council support services; A review of transport provision for people using adult social care services; Improving support to reduce hospital stays and maximise independence; Council property rationalisation by reducing the authority’s number of properties; Waste and recycling reforms; And savings in senior management costs in light of Local Government changes including the new East Midlands Combined County Authority.
Derbyshire County Council’s new saving proposals will be considered at a Cabinet meeting on January 9 along with how it aims to meet the funding shortfall and maintain a balanced budget for 2025/26.
The council’s Improvement and Scrutiny Committee will meet on January 13 to also consider the proposals before a budget-setting report is considered by Cabinet on January 30 with details then to be presented and discussed at a Full Council meeting on February 12.
If progress is agreed , many of the proposals will then be subject to further Cabinet reports, a public engagement process and shared consultations before any final decisions.