City council facing funding gap of £11.5m

A council facing an £11.5m funding gap has been told not to expect the government to come in "on a white horse" and save it.

Labour-controlled Cambridge City Council says it needs to make millions in savings in the coming years in order to continue to balance the books.

The leadership acknowledged this could mean some service cuts.

Papers presented to the city council’s strategy and resources scrutiny committee meeting revealed the projected budget gap in the next five years had increased from £9.5m to £11.5m.

The city council has set out a target to make £6m of savings by April 2026, and then a further £5.5m of savings by 2029.

The report said the plan to deliver the first £6m of savings including £2.5m that would not impact public service delivery, and would focus on reducing management costs and making “efficiency savings”.

Jody Etherington, chief finance officer, said he recognised the £6m target was "going to have an impact", reported the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Labour councillor Dave Baigent asked if the council had approached government about it helping with the costs of meeting the demand from growth in the city.

He said: “The government has a plan for Cambridge expansion, and last week alone we approved 8,000 new jobs in Cambridge, without any real obvious assistance from government."

Labour's Mike Davey, leader of the city council, said these meetings were taking place.

But Simon Smith (Labour), executive councillor for finance and resources, said the government was "not going to come in on a white horse" to save the city council.

Tim Bick (Liberal Democrat) said the city council leadership had set out funding gaps and plans to address them in the past, often saving less than planned.

Union representatives raised concerns about the report, and said there was "little detail" and that "staff would like to know if there are going to be cuts to direct service".

Mr Davey said the papers presented to the meeting offered “high level context” of the plans, but said detailed proposals would go through the scrutiny process after a consultation was held.

He added that he hoped the unions would be “heavily involved” in the discussions.

Mr Davey said making £11.5m of savings was ‘not something the council took lightly’.

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