We would like your views on our budget proposals for 2025/26.
Your council, like others around the country, is facing significant pressure on its budget, caused by an unprecedented demand for our services.
An example of this, and the effect it has on our ability to balance our budget, is the number of children coming into our care and, in particular, children with complex needs who require support in residential accommodation.
Housing children in residential accommodation has become increasingly more expensive in recent years and currently costs an average of £330,000 a year. This is a national issue which affects all councils and it is one that the Government has recognised and announced an intention to address this. Further details about this are available here.
The cost of providing these residential placements for children in our care is currently forecast to outstrip the Council’s budget for this by £11.9 million in 2024/25.
In 2025/26, we are proposing to invest in our support for children and other services we provide to ensure we can continue to provide for residents.
The Government’s assessment of funding available to councils assumes all councils apply the maximum increases of 3% for Council Tax and 2% for the Adult Social Care precept. Even then the funding available is still well short of keeping pace with our duty to spend on statutory services like social care.
We anticipate that even after applying the government assumed increases of 2.99% for Council Tax and 2% for the Adult Social Care precept, we will still have a shortfall of £8.8m in our budget next year.
We must, by law, balance our budget and not doing so would probably mean commissioners appointed by the Government taking over your council.
Where this has happened to other councils elsewhere in the country it has meant very severe cuts to services, widespread sales of assets, such as buildings, and double-digit Council Tax increases.
To avoid this, we are proposing savings to offset the £8.8m shortfall.
More than 60% of our budget is spent on supporting vulnerable children and adults.
We anticipate this proportion of spend will continue to rise in the coming year, which means we have a relatively small and decreasing amount of money to spend on all the other services we provide every day of the year.
The full report, which includes all the proposals and will be considered by the Council’s Cabinet is available here.
We have produced a question and answer document which explains how our budget works, the challenges we are facing and how we are addressing this. It is available here.
Further details of the investments and savings which are proposed are available here.
A media release, which explains our current position is available here.