Balanced budget proposed for North Somerset Council

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North Somerset Council’s Executive will meet next week (Wednesday 5 February) to review plans which set a balanced 2025/26 budget amid a worsening three-year budget forecast.

Like many councils across the country, demand and cost for services has significantly increased, particularly for children in care, people with special educational needs and disabilities and meeting the care needs of older and vulnerable adults.

This is at a time when income from central government has reduced. In 2014/15, 25% of council income came from government funding; this had more than halved to 12% in 2024/25.  

In response, the council has developed savings proposals and service cuts of over £44million across the next three years, with over £20million recommended for next year alone.

If approved next Wednesday, the Executive will present to North Somerset Councillors on Tuesday 18 February a balanced 2025/26 budget and a proposed council tax increase of 2.99% and adult social care precept of 2% (funding which specifically supports adult social care services) – for a total increase of 4.99%.  A 4.99% North Somerset Council increase on a Band D property will be £85.25 for the year or £1.64 per week. As a result of this budget, North Somerset Council’s share of council tax will remain the second lowest in the region.

The council has worked extremely hard to find ways to balance the budget by implementing a series of measures. This includes reducing costs, generating more income, changing the way contracts are commissioned, looking at how services are delivered, transforming services and in some cases reducing services. It has also reduced senior management and staff workforce.

Spending at higher levels, however, is forecast to continue into future years. The current forecast budget gap for the next three years stands at £10.047million. This budget gap is due in part to increased spending on front line services and the need to use £9.1million of one-off funding from reserves to balance the budget for next year. Although this allows the council to continue to deliver vital statutory services to those most in need within the community, this not sustainable for the longer-term.

Budget plans have been shared widely so residents and stakeholders had an opportunity to feed in their thoughts and views on issues that could impact on them in the future.  Public consultations, engagement meetings and online sessions as well as the publication and review of equality impact assessments and the creation of a budget simulator took place between December 2024 and January 2025. The results   of the engagement exercise can be found here.

The budget plans initially included a proposed saving of £1.5million from making changes to the Council Tax Support Scheme, which supports low-income households with their council tax bill. After listening to feedback, the council is being asked to fully maintain the headline rate of support to working age residents at its current level of 75.5% for next year. Changes will, however, still be made to the scheme to make it more efficient to administer, but these changes are not expected to deliver a budget saving or materially affect the amount of support vulnerable people receive.

Cllr Mike Bell, Leader of North Somerset Council said: “Thank you to everyone who took part in our budget engagement and helped shape our thinking around continuing difficult and challenging decisions. Thanks to this feedback and the incredibly hard work of council officers, we will be presenting a balanced budget for 2025/26. However, this has been achieved through tough choices about spending and service changes and through the use of one-off resources. Due to a rising tide in demand and costs, our long-term budget gap has now widened to just over £10million. This means further solutions and savings plans will need to be identified in the years ahead.  

“We are continuing to urge the government to better and fairly fund local councils across the country. Please sign our Fair Deal petition if you haven’t already. We were extremely disappointed North Somerset Council didn’t receive a share of the new recovery grant during the recent local government finance settlement announcement, funding that was specifically designed to help councils with greater need and demand for services.

“We are closely monitoring the government’s plans to review levels of funding within their planned Spending Review. Without reform and sustainable funding models, local government in this country will die a slow death by a thousand cuts. We welcome the government’s commitment to look at this and know they are listening to the urgent case for better and fairer funding. We need action so we can continue to deliver the key frontline services upon which our residents depend.”

North Somerset Council will receive just £789 in government funding per household next year (excluding council tax), compared to the English average of £1,190. North Somerset has a low taxbase and low levels of council tax compared to other councils, which means their ability to generate additional funding is more limited than others.

North Somerset Council wants to see local government nationally get a better deal and greater support which is why they’ve launched a Fair Deal petition calling on the government to provide a ‘fair deal’ to the people of North Somerset. This petition will be handed to central government. Please sign the petition at www.n-somerset.gov.uk/fairdeal if you feel the people of North Somerset deserve a fair deal and share this petition link with others.