North Somerset Council faces ‘financial emergency’

Council leader Mike Bell has urged people to be prepared for “non-essential” services to be cut back or axed completely as the authority considers immediate “radical measures” to avoid going £23.5m over its budget for the current financial year.

The overspend has been driven by rising demand for both adult social services and children’s services.

The council warned that if it could not balance the budget by March, it would face having to issue a section 114 notice — effectively the council equivalent of going bankrupt.

A section 114 notice is issued when a council cannot meet its legal obligation of balancing its income and spending. It restricts council spending on anything except core statutory services.

Mr Bell said: “Radical measures are needed and we are treating this as a financial emergency.

“We will always prioritise services for vulnerable people, but everyone should be prepared for non-essential services to be reduced or withdrawn.”

Weston's Town Hall, the council's headquarters. (Image: John Wimperis)

The council has already planned to cut the overspend in half with £12m to be saved through immediate spending controls and postponing and cancelling spending where possible.

But another £11.6m that can be saved has to be found before March.

In an email seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the council’s chief executive Jo Walker appealed to councillors for ideas of what could be cut.

She wrote: “If you have any ideas for things to stop, reduce or deprioritise, please do contribute your ideas through the scrutiny process or sharing them with the relevant director or with me.”

North Somerset Council’s executive will discuss the council’s financial position at their meeting at 3.30pm on Tuesday, September 17 in Weston-super-Mare Town Hall.

The whole council will meet later that evening for its semi-regular full council meeting at 6pm, where the councillors are asked to note a report on the council’s financial position.

Mr Bell added: “We had to make some really tough decisions to set a balanced budget this year, but already costs for social care and other key services mean that without further immediate measures we will face a significant overspend.

“Our challenge is set against a backdrop of 15 years of national funding cuts meaning that we have already had many successive years of identifying ever more difficult savings.

“We are seeing an increase in the number of vulnerable children and adults needing social care support alongside an increase in the complexity and cost of their need, which is increasing demand for social care services, housing and home to school transport.”

The council’s budget for the current financial year was set at £225.16m in February but the council is now set to spend £248.74m by March 2025.

The savings already found have brought this number down to £236.81m — but that is still a more than 10 per cent overspend.

Although there are overspends across areas of service expenditure, the highest overspends are in children’s services and adult social services.

Before the council’s planned mitigations, children’s services was 34.17 per cent over budget, while adult social services was over budget by 9.99 per cent.

A report going before the council’s executive on Tuesday, September 17 said that the scale of demand was “unprecedented” because demand was rising for both adults’ and children’s services at the same time.

Despite the need for major cuts, work to restore Birnbeck Pier will continue as its funding comes solely from grants given to the council.

Mark Canniford, the council’s executive member responsible for placemaking said: “I’m very conscious that we, like many other councils across the country, are increasingly having to make difficult financial decisions based on available funding.

“I’m pleased therefore that we have managed to find solutions to support the Birnbeck Pier project through an additional application for funding and the reallocation of other grant funding.

“This avoids the need for us to consider using any of the council’s own revenue or capital budgets, which we know we simply can’t afford.

“The grants cannot be used to fund other council services such as road improvements or additional services.”

Mr Bell said: “As councillors, alongside our committed leadership team, we will do everything within our power to avoid the worst outcomes.

“We will continue to lobby central government relentlessly for additional and fair funding for our valued services.

“However, we must be honest that the community will see and feel a difference and we cannot go on as we are without further action.

“None of us, not staff or elected members, joined local government to find ourselves in this position. Some of our decisions will be unpopular.

“People will be angry. We will do our best to ensure our communities have all the information they need so they understand why we are having to take such action.

“We hope that in return our communities will support each other and work with us to continue to make North Somerset a great place to live, work and visit.”

As well as the in-year pressures, the council now faces a £30m budget gap for 2025/26 and the next two financial years.