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Last week our Executive members met to discuss the progress being made to close the £17m gap we announced in September.
This £17m gap accounted for about 10 per cent of the council’s net spend against a background of an already very lean financial position.
Like councils across the country, we face spiralling inflationary cost pressures and stretched staff resources, as well as increasing demands for services as more residents struggle with the impacts of the cost of living crisis.
We’ve been working to develop savings proposals and, with the savings proposed at the meeting last week, the budget gap for the next financial year now stands at £4m.
We’ve already made significant savings over the last 13 years of austerity.
Additional funding allocations from central government to support covid recovery have come to an end and have not been replaced with revised measures to help tackle the inflationary increases.
As part of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement last month, councils will be able to raise council tax next year by up to five per cent, including up to two per cent ring-fenced for adult social care.
However, this won’t solve all our budget problems and it’s not something we do lightly.
Our council tax is lower than all our neighbours - last year it was £351 lower than Bristol for a band D property - so raising more money through council tax doesn’t generate as much additional money for us as it does in other council areas.
It also places additional pressures on our residents, who are already facing significant financial challenges of their own.
The Chancellor’s announcement doesn’t translate into additional budget for us because our financial planning included extra grant funding from government which has not materialised.
His Autumn Statement also outlined that councils would benefit from new funding for social care reform. While this is welcome it will need to be ringfenced for the additional responsibilities which we will face.
We’ll do our best to protect our services for the most vulnerable people in our communities wherever possible and they remain our priority.
We know that there are difficult times ahead but we are committed to delivering the best services we can and a more open, fairer and greener North Somerset.
We’re now inviting members of our citizens panel to share their views on the plans for the year ahead.
This feedback will be included within the next report so councillors can consider the views of local people when these important decisions are made.
The council’s leadership team and senior managers will continue to work on proposals to close the remaining £4m gap for 2023-24 before the final budget and council tax levels are agreed in February.
See the report from the recent meeting on our website, along with the other items for that meeting.