Bolton Council will need to make £30m of cuts over the next four years as their budget gap grows, councillors have been told.
A meeting of the council’s cabinet heard the overall ‘budget gap’ predicted by the council over that period is around £46.4m with the council set to use of £16.6m of cash reserves to assist in the implementation of the cuts.
However, such use of reserves has been challenged in a recent report by the council’s external auditors as ‘unsustainable’. The council have said the gap in finances is being largely caused by increasing demand in children’s services and adult social care.
The authority is also forecast to overspend this year’s budget by around £15m. The council’s treasurer has recommended a two year budget with savings target covering 2025/26 and 2026/27 be set by the council next February.
Details of where the council will find the money will be considered further at a cabinet meeting in December 2024 where departmental cuts options will be presented in a budget report. A report presented to the council’s cabinet this week outlined the authority’s medium term financial plans.
It said: “The council has faced continued financial challenges since 2010, with cuts over this period of circa £229m requiring ongoing savings to bridge the gap between falling resources, rising costs and increasing local demands. Each time the budget has been set a cuts programme has been put in place to facilitate the successful delivery.
“In some years reserves have been used to smooth the cuts target acknowledging that this is only a temporary solution.”
Opposition leader Coun Martyn Cox, said: “We seem to be projecting quite a long way into the future and there is an awful lot of variables at play. I’m not sure to what extent these are particularly useful figures.”
Council leader Nick Peel, said: “It is useful background but has to be read in conjunction with the actual budget report which is coming up. “Until the government actually follow through their commitment to have longer term financial settlements, whether that’s three or four years then it can become a bit of an academic exercise, but it is useful to know at this moment in time we’re looking at circa £30m.”
The report also outlined a forecast 2024/25 out-turn position as an overspend against budget of £14.788m. The areas of variance were listed as regeneration, with the planning service was impacted over the last year by increased staffing costs and reduced fee income and the revenue from Bolton Markets reduced due to the impact of the refurbishment works.
Children’s services was by far the largest area of overspend with the cost of external placements sometimes in excess of £15,000 per week for one child.
Expenditure for children services is reported as £13.103m greater than the budget. The report added: “Demand in adult social care also continues to be an area of concern although recent government social care grants have helped.”
