Cornwall Council is seeking “creative solutions” to achieve nearly £75m in savings by financial year 2027/28 and maintain a balanced budget.
Draft budget proposals are to be discussed by the authority’s cabinet next week (13 September), with the aim of protecting essential services and delivering savings by improving efficiency.
To maintain a balanced budget, the council said it would have to achieve savings of £29m for next year, with a further £45m of savings required by 2027/28.
As at the end of Q1, the authority is projecting an overspend of £7.946m against a net budget of £707.667m this financial year. The home to school transport budget is forecasted to overspend by £5m. Temporary and emergency accommodation is projected to overspend by £6.7m, with pressures in housing benefits resulting in a forecast overspend of £1.7m.
The authority said its plans include new efficiency measures and income generation worth £11m on top of measures worth £18m already planned for 2024/25.
Under the draft proposals council tax would rise by 2.99% which, in addition to the government’s 2% levy for social care, would see a total increase of 4.99%. This is equivalent to an extra £1.73 a week for a Band D property, Cornwall Council said. Council tax support for those struggling to pay bills would be protected, including support for care leavers up to the age of 25.
The council is also seeking to identify areas where it can “reduce or stop” its service provision. “We will not be able to afford to provide all [discretionary] services and we will need to prioritise and reduce provision where we can safely and legally do so,” a report to be considered at the cabinet meeting stated.
Operational efficiencies will be sought through “harder and faster automation”, while there will be “management control of expenditure”. Additionally, the council will review its capital programme to “prioritise projects to keep within set thresholds and budgets”.
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Cornwall’s plans also include a proposal that the council treat experiences of care as a protected characteristic, including people of any age with experience of being in children’s social care. This would mean the council giving experience of care the same status as other protected characteristics, as set out in the Equality Act 2010 – in effect treating it as a tenth protected characteristic within Cornwall.
The council noted that it had already taken “difficult decisions” in respect of the 2022/23 and 2023/24 budgets, when savings of c£60m and c£55m respectively were approved and council tax was increased by the capping limit in each of those two years.
David Harris, deputy leader of the council and portfolio holder for resources, said: “Like other local authorities we continue to face enormous financial challenges and must work doubly hard to find creative solutions that allow us to meet them head-on.
“We have done this by finding new efficiency measures and ways to generate income that will help us return a balanced budget.
“These proposals focus on our priorities and reflect our commitment to deliver value for money for residents while protecting frontline services and supporting the most vulnerable among us.
“Following our review of these plans the details will be put before the council’s various scrutiny committees and I look forward to receiving their feedback.”
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