Proposals for how Cambridgeshire County Council aims to deliver on its ambitions and still achieve a balanced budget for 2023-24 as required by law, amid growing costs and rising demand, will be heard by Members at its Strategy and Resources committee next week (26th January).
Members are set to discuss how the council will bridge a potential funding gap for the coming year of £21.4m, even after finding more than £10m of additional savings or income, as it seeks to manage levels of inflation not seen for 40 years plus rising costs for energy and essential services.
It will also outline how it plans to spend more than £15m of one-off funds from reserves next year including £1m to continue free school meal vouchers for eligible children, £1m into highways schemes including rural roads drainage, £1m investment into flood mitigation, more than £1.3m into libraries and a £380k investment in community services.
In a report to Members, Stephen Moir the Council’s Chief Executive and Tom Kelly, it’s Service Director for Finance and Procurement, set out details of how the Government’s December Funding settlement will affect Cambridgeshire. “Overall, the government is announcing that core spending power of Cambridgeshire will increase by 9.5% next year (compared to an average across all councils of 9.2%). Of this, however, half relates to additional council tax raising powers, and a further third relates to compensation for business rates not increasing in line with inflation. Genuine new government support, therefore, will increase our budget by much less than the headline figure (and less than inflation).”
The report highlights increases the council faces in demand led services, such as spending £12m more each year for high needs education than it receives in funding.
It also highlights how the growing demand faced by Councils like Cambridgeshire responsible for social care services, is exacerbated by high levels of vacancies across all areas of social work, reablement, residential and care homes, an issue highlighted nationally last week by the Local Government Association which said: “A decade of consistent underfunding of social care and underinvestment in community health services has led us into this crisis. It will not be fixed through tacked-on funding that fails to address any of the root causes of this situation.” The council plans to invest a further £2m over the next four years to bring more personalised and local care to communities and commits to continuing to pay the real living wage to social care staff.
The Impact of climate change and of extreme weather events is causing growing problems on Cambridgeshire’s roads – particularly in the Fens where soil affected roads are deteriorating even faster due to increasing extreme weather events, such as the floods of 2020, and record temperatures last summer. The Council spends more than £30m on more than 4,500 miles of highways annually, but much more will be needed to deliver the levels of improvements needed.
Extra investment is proposed in renewable energy schemes in the council’s budget seeks to create income streams to use for frontline services, as well as increasing environmental benefits.
The report proposes that the council considers raising council tax for the coming year to 4.99% - the maximum allowed by Government before triggering a local referendum, which includes a 2% precept for adult social care. This would see band D properties in the county paying an additional
£73 per year, although more than half (64%) of county lives in homes rated band C or below and would see rises of between £49 and £65 per year.
In total this would raise £17.8m towards setting a balanced budget for 2023/4 – and would mitigate the additional costs of demand for and inflation related to adult social care forecast by the council in the year ahead.
“Financial support offered to councils by the Government continues to ignore the growth in Cambridgeshire’s population or its specific needs to provide care for an aging population, without a nationally sustainable social care plan and a road network at greater risk of damage by extreme weather,” said Cllr Lucy Nethsingha, Leader of the Council. “And for the coming year we are being held to ransom by the Government , as half the national funding settlement merely allows us to increase council tax to the Government’s new suggested threshold of 4.99%. The amount we would raise by doing this almost exactly matches the increase we predict in social care costs, so it is with reluctance that we are recommending this.”
“We understand more people than ever are experiencing economic hardship, and when people’s own finances are squeezed, they rely more and more on council services,” said Cllr Elisa Meschini, Deputy Leader of the Council. “Nothing illustrates that more than the 24% increase in the number of children becoming eligible for free school meals in the past 16 months. Providing those services, however, is becoming harder and harder. Inflation, rising interest rates, the costs of energy, and recent changes made at very short notice to the regulations around waste handling have been adding huge pressure to our already overstretched capacity to discharge our duties. We are using prudently held one off reserves in year to meet some of the urgent need that is facing us – as that is what the money was set aside to do –but we have to remember this one is one off, and doesn’t solve our chronic underfunding problem long term.”
“We will continue to prioritise help to those in most need and help people to access it from us or via other routes.” added Cllr Tom Sanderson, Independent Group leader, and Chair of the Communities, Social Mobility, and Inclusion Committee. “We are prioritising some of our one-off funds directly into supporting the most vulnerable, such as the extension of the school meal vouchers, investments in community services and our libraries – as well as sign posting people in most need to the council tax discount schemes run by our district and city council partners.”
“Our budget continues to be focussed on delivering the Council’s vision to create a Greener, Fairer and more Caring Cambridgeshire – and we are determined to continue to invest in and fight for the services that our residents need which will achieve this,” Cllr Nethsingha concluded.
If supported the business plan and budget proposals will be recommended to Full Council on February 7th for final approval.
The Council’s proposed five-year Strategic Framework is based around its seven key ambitions, each of which help to deliver the Council’s vision, and progress against which will be overseen by and scrutinised through the work of the Council’s key service and policy committees.
Over the next five years, additional improvements the business plan looks to deliver include;
• £122m for new primary school places
• £164 for new secondary school places
• £13.3m investment into converting streetlights to LED, delivering both environmental and financial benefits
• £2.5m into a new highways materials recycling operation
• A £7.2m upgrade to the March and Milton Household recycling centres
