£19M cuts planned for Derbyshire County Council

The leader of Derbyshire County Council says “the cupboards are quite bare” as he outlined £19 million in further cuts in order to keep the authority in control of its own finances.

A council meeting yesterday (January 13) involved scrutiny of the authority’s planned budget cuts for the next financial year, starting in April and running until March 2026.

The authority has outlined £18.6 million in required cuts in order to meet a balanced budget, with the council continually relying on heavy use of its rainy day reserves in order to stay afloat.

Each year, the council must balance its budget to avoid the Government effectively gaining direct control of its finances and scrutinising every piece of new spending.

The council has already imposed “tight” restrictions on any new spending and deployed vacancy management measures to only fill empty roles where absolutely necessary.

This year the council sought to make cuts of more than £31 million in order to balance its books and while it has nearly hit that figure right in time for the end of the financial year, it is now looking at a £28 million overspend due to intense demand for social care.

The cost of adult and children’s social care continues to increase, with the authority beholden to external private providers and the fees they set. It is also witnessing a continued rapid increase in demand and complexity of need.

This all adds up to a £77 million “demand pressure” (£47 million adult social care, £24 million children’s services) which has pushed its budget over the money it had allocated, despite the £31 million in cutbacks.

Reducing this demand pressure is a core focus going forward, leaders say, and is “vital” to helping the authority live within its financial means.

Proposed cuts going forward are based on the “assumption” that the authority continues to set maximum council tax increases of 4.99 per cent – with two per cent ring-fenced for adult social care, a report says.

The council says that if it cannot reduce its planned £28 million overspend it will be looking at using £49 million in reserves – making it the third year in a row it has used around £50 million from its emergency funds to meet a balanced budget.

Mark Kenyon, the council’s finance chief, says “this is something we cannot continue to do”, dubbing the “nearly £80 million” in social care pressures “eye-watering”.

He said this had left the council in a “difficult” position”, saying it was “critical” going forward to “work within the allocated budget”.

Cllr Stuart Swann, chairing the meeting, said the Labour Government had commented “working people can’t be expected to subsidise the current levels of (NHS) care with ever-rising taxes” but had based its assessment of local council spending power on the assumption they implement maximum tax increases.

Cllr Swann said: “Clearly, the Government should realise that it’s far from sustainable to be burdening the taxpayers of Derbyshire with such increases.”

Cllr Barry Lewis, Conservative council leader, said: “The cupboards are quite bare. We can’t sit on our hands and do nothing. There is no alternative to these measures unless you (opposition Labour councillors) have alternative proposals.”

He said the adult social care pressure was “most critical” and that this was compounded by national living wage increases and higher pension contributions in the region of £10 million extra.

Cllr Simon Spencer said the authority would use artificial intelligence (AI) and other options to make the council more “efficient”, with the organisation currently costing four times more than its similar-sized councils to run, dubbing this “unsustainable”.

Emma Alexander, managing director of the council, said the £77 million strain from adult and children’s social care was a “quite unprecedented cost pressure”.

She said children’s services will be focusing on how to reduce the cost pressures instead of bringing in any further budget cuts for the coming years.

The council hopes to make a saving of £8.9 million by offloading the cost of recycling certain packaging material to the producers and suppliers, under a new waste management law.

Meanwhile, £13 million in cuts to adult social care will include £7 million by 2027 from reviewing the discharge procedure from hospital, including “admission avoidance”.

The council, in order to cut down the amount of money it takes to run the authority, is expecting to save an initial £2 million by reviewing the 2,600 support staff it employs – out of its 12,000 workforce – with the potential to save £20 million.

This is what is driving its operating costs to four times other councils such as Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire, officials said.

Up to 1,000 of these roles are business administration positions, completing some tasks which could be achieved through use of AI.