£55 million Funding Gap in County Council Finances
PAUL MCLAUGHLIN
East Sussex County Councillors were presented with a bleak financial report for the year ahead at a meeting of the full council last Tuesday (9 July). The annual State of the County report set out a detailed analysis of the Council’s finances and warned of a £55 million funding gap, which would make it almost impossible to maintain the current levels of service next year without a better funding deal from central government.
Government cuts over the last decade have forced East Sussex to make nearly £140 million of savings whilst continuing to provide essential services that have seen a rise in demand along with increased costs over that period.
The Conservative Leader of the Council, Keith Glazier, said “years of careful financial planning had put the County Council in the best possible position to deal with the growing pressures, but without a fairer longer-term funding agreement, the level of services East Sussex could offer would eventually be more severely affected.” We are now at the point “where even our core offer, in terms of Adult Social Care, Children’s Services, economic development and infrastructure to the residents of the county, is under threat.”
He indicated that “in light of the unsustainable financial position we find ourselves in, we have already taken steps to reduce day-to-day spending where possible and are reviewing all areas of the council’s work to ensure we continue to make the best use of every penny we are able to spend.”
Ahead of budget setting in early 2025, the County Council is looking at a reform to the Special Educational Needs and Disability system to ensure funding better matches the priority needs of children and families; agree a long-term national funding settlement for social care for adults; and introduce limits on the profits that commercial agencies, competing directly with local authorities, can make on placing children in residential care or providing agency staff.
Godfrey Daniel, the Labour councillor for Hastings Braybrooke and Castle ward, said the Council Leader’s statement was a sorry obituary on 14 years of Tory misrule and its legacy of austerity, poorer local services and more potholes.
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