Northamptonshire County Council has approved a revised budget for 2018-19, a week after its auditors warned that its original plans were potentially unlawful.
The authority last week abandoned its budget after KPMG warned that plans to spend £40.9m in capital receipts on transformation projects were “not on any view achievable”.
This week’s revised budget reduces that figure by almost £10m, with the gap made up by a number of cuts to services. The proposals were approved in a meeting of the council’s cabinet by 33 votes to 13, with one abstention.
Council cabinet member for finance Robin Brown, said: “We have tried to minimise the impact on the most vulnerable in our communities, the cost of which is largely invisible to the wider population, and therefore it is regrettable but inevitable that these proposals will have an impact on the population as a whole.
“These revised budget recommendations have been brought forward in light of the advisory notice issued by KPMG last week and include service reductions we had hoped to avoid but now regrettably have to bring forward in order to set a realistic and deliverable budget by 1 March.”
Cuts made by the council in the revised budget include closing 21 small libraries, removing bus subsidies, reducing the trading standards budget by 42%, reducing the highways maintenance budget, increasing on-street parking controls, reducing councillors’ allowances and instituting a pay freeze for staff.
Spending controls introduced under a section 114 notice issued in January by the council’s section 151 officer, executive director of finance Mark McLaughlin, will remain in place into the new financial year.
A report by McLaughlin to this week’s cabinet meeting said: “In addressing the concerns of the external auditor, the council has no choice but to consider proposals which have previously been rejected or considered undesirable due to the implications of the service reductions.
“This is not something that the council has taken lightly, and it recognises that there will be an impact on service provision both in 2018-19 and in future years.”
In January, communities secretary Sajid Javid sent government inspectors into the authority over concerns about the shape of its finances.
