Budget good news for council's funding gap

The challenge of balancing the books at Cornwall Council has been made easier by this week's Budget, its deputy leader has said.

The government confirmed local authorities would receive an additional £1.3bn from next year.

The Conservative-run council must plug a £58m hole in its budget for the next financial year and has yet to identify £9m of savings.

Councillor David Harris welcomed the extra support from the government but admitted there is still work to do.

The government pledged £500m for local road maintenance and £232m to help councils prevent homelessness.

It also confirmed a pilot scheme which allows the council to keep 100% of business rates revenue will also be continued for another year.

Mr Harris said: "Bearing in mind what we saw were broad numbers, it was pretty good.

"The devil will be in the detail - but overall it's made it slightly easier because I can see there's possibly an extra eight, nine, ten million pounds for us coming out of the budget."

Councillors on the budget development overview and scrutiny committee met on Thursday to assess £49m of savings already identified by officers.

He said a "team effort" was required to find the remaining £9m and that "all ideas" would be considered.

However, he insisted the authority dipping into its reserves for a second year in a row to cover the shortfall was "unsustainable".

Looking further ahead, the government also confirmed it would reform the way local authorities are allocated funding through the current formula.

Cornwall has long called for fairer funding for the area but Mr Harris said he would remain cautious until they saw it "in black and white".

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