Hendon Town Hall
The Leader of Barnet Council, Cllr Barry Rawlings, has said that the council is facing a “perfect storm” of rising costs of delivering core services and increasing demand for expensive services, such as adult social care and placing homeless families in temporary accommodation.
Proposals for tackling Barnet Council’s widening budget gap will be reviewed by Cllr Rawlings and his Cabinet members on Monday 18 November, with recovery plan details and further savings proposals due at the 5 December Cabinet meeting. The council’s latest forecast has identified a £25m funding gap for the 2024-25 financial year – up from £20m first estimated in early summer. This is about 6.5% of the council's annual budget.
In response to the initial forecast, the council proposed to close the funding gap by using some of its savings (or ‘reserves’) and by putting controls in place to cut non-essential spending. While these measures have had some effect, the budget gap has quickly grown to £25m because of the unprecedented spike in demand for adult social care and temporary accommodation, as well as the increasing costs of providing these services, which is being driven by inflation.
The report to Cabinet also warns that the pressure of demand for the council’s services is expected to continue in 2025 and 2026, with the council facing a gap in its next annual budget of a forecast £28m.
Leader of Barnet Council, Cllr Barry Rawlings, said: “We are in a perfect storm of more people needing adult social care or being placed into temporary accommodation, while at the same time the costs of these services just continue to increase.
“The council’s budget has halved since 2010 with 14 years of austerity-driven cuts to local government funding. While the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget gave us some positive news, right now it’s not enough to close the budget gap we face.
“By law we must set a balanced budget, which is to say we can’t spend beyond our means. We have curtailed our spend but the fact is we still have more difficult decisions to make.”
The Cabinet will meet on 18 November to discuss the funding challenges and will review further proposals for reducing costs when they meet in December.