‘Core offer’ not enough to reduce county’s budget gap
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A county council which last year decided to cut its service provision to a bare minimum says it will still run out of money without extra funding from central government.
In August, East Sussex County Council voted to reduce services to the bare minimum required by law – what it dubbed a “core offer” – in an attempt to balance its books.
However, in papers set to be considered by the council’s cabinet next week, the council’s chief executive Becky Shaw says that the move is only likely to reduce the expected cumulative budget deficit in 2022/23 from £34.4m to £27.2m.
Shaw said: “Moving to the core offer will contribute further savings in the next two years, but these will not meet the shortfall in funding we anticipate if no additional money is available from the Government.
“This may mean members face some extremely challenging choices when setting the budget if the Government cannot be persuaded to continue the one-off funding we have received in recent years in the short term and does not make long term sustainable funding available to local government.”
The report said that savings made so far have led to “significant impacts” on community based adult social care services, assessment and care management staffing levels, family centres, youth services, libraries and cultural services and the amount spent on the highways network and the public realm.
“The continued pressure on budgets in the future means that, despite continuing commitment to maximise efficiency and generate income, services will continue to be concentrated on those in most urgent need and a comprehensive offer of universal services to all residents will not be maintained,” Shaw said.
The latest update to the authority’s medium term financial plan assumes that government funding will fall by £1.1m up to 2022/23.
Over the same period, projected inflation, demographic and service pressures costs are expected to raise costs by £60.6m.
The report said: “Increased council tax receipts are forecast to bring £27.3m additional funding, but this still leaves a shortfall in spending power of £34.4m; the current forecast savings requirement.”
Shaw voiced worries about the lack of certainty about future government funding and the current approach of making a series of short-term, one-off funding announcements to councils.
She said: “Any growth in the council’s resources will therefore need to come from either local council tax or business rates.”
The council is planning to directly lobby ministers and government departments and indirectly through local MPs, partners and stakeholders.
However, Smith admitted: “The anticipated delay in the spending review means that the best outcome we can expect for next year is a continuation of the one-off funding we received in the last budget round as a minimum, which we will ask to be uplifted to reflect our real pressures.”
