Options listing the stark savings proposals that Coventry City Council will need to consider in order to meet its legal duty of setting a balanced budget will be discussed by councillors next week.
The Council’s pre-budget report will be discussed at Cabinet on Tuesday 10 December before a public consultation is launched on how the Council could make savings for the next financial year of April 2025 to March 2026.
The Council’s faces a £10.8m net gap for 25/26 largely due to further financial pressures in social care and housing. Additional government resources have helped mitigate pressures, but savings are still expected to be required to balance the books.
The consultation will allow residents to see the savings proposals and to feedback with their comments.
Cllr Richard Brown, Cabinet Member for Finance, said: “We have not made any final decisions on any of the proposals. This will happen at the end of February, but before then - like all councils - we need to have some difficult conversations.
“Although the recent Autumn budget announcement was better than expected, we need to wait until the final settlement is made in December before we have a full picture.
“I do believe this Government is more sympathetic to public services, but they can’t start to fix 14 years of underfunding, that has seen unprecedented rises in demand and costs, overnight.” 8
Today, over 80 per cent of the Council’s net budget is spent on three areas – homelessness, adult social care and children’s social care – up from just over 50 per cent in 2010. It leaves less than 20 per cent to pay for hundreds of other services the Council delivers every year.
Cllr Brown said: “We have taken a range of financial actions over recent years, having to save £30m from the current year’s budget alone. There have been significant reductions in staff from 10,000 to 5,000 over the past 15 years and we have made savings across every service, every year.
“It is getting harder and harder to do and in this year’s pre-budget report we will be listing savings that will help us to maintain the services that are most important to residents.
“Out of necessity, everything has to be considered.”
Cllr Brown added: “But it is important to stress that no decisions have been made. A final list will be shared with Cabinet members on 10 December before we consult with the public.”
The Council faces a greater demand for adult and children’s social care and homelessness services, while inflation is a continuing pressure.
Cllr Brown added: “Although the current savings programme for this year is about £30m, after Quarter 2 we are predicting a £10m overspend due to pressures and demand on services.
“We do have some uncommitted reserves that could help this situation, but reserves can only be spent once and in the last two years, we have spent £8.5m from our reserves in balancing the books, which is just not sustainable.”
Savings proposals being considered include:
- A savings target across senior management posts
- Savings across adults’ and children’s social care
- Reductions in cleansing services
- Reductions in parks services
- Charging at the War Memorial Park car park
- Removing the Community Support Grant for one year, offset by the extended Household Support Grant
- Reducing Council Tax support discount from 80% to 75%
- Reducing the number of portacabins set up at elections
- Reducing voluntary sector contributions
Financial pressures
- Over the past 14 years, Coventry’s core spending power has fallen in real terms by £1.5bn in that period. That’s more than £100m (on average) every year.
- In real terms, Coventry’s core spending power has fallen on average by over £100m every year or, in other words, we have £655 less to spend on every Coventry household.
- Coventry’s spending power is also one of the lowest funding per head at £78 less per head compared to other councils nationally. The equivalent of £28m a year.
- Funding also takes no account of population growth. With Coventry’s population among the top 10 for growth nationally since 2010 – it means our money has to stretch further than other councils.
- In 2010 we calculated that 52 per cent of our net budget was spent on social care and housing/homelessness. But because funding is not needs-based, and has not kept up with demand and inflation, today more than 80 per cent is spent on social care and housing and homelessness. The stark reality is we now have less than 20 per cent to spend on all other services.