Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe, Leader of Bradford Council, has recorded a video message following the publication of budget proposals for the financial year 2024-25.
Click on the image to play the video.
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Budget proposals for the financial year 2024-25 will be discussed at a meeting of Bradford Council’s Executive Committee next week.
The proposals set out the need to make a significant savings, and offers a range of options including:
- Closure of a Children’s Outdoor Centre.
- Closure of three household waste recycling sites.
- Cuts in funding to libraries and leisure services.
- Increase in fees and charges across the council.
- Increase in council tax.
More proposals for further savings will be developed in the coming months to enable the council to reach a balanced budget.
These proposals will be discussed at an Executive meeting on Thursday, 11 January. Following the meeting the public consultation on the proposals will begin.
The proposals have been developed under an unprecedented level of financial pressure due mostly to the continued significant increases in children’s and adult social care demand and cost pressures that are consuming an ever-greater proportion of the council’s resources. Projected spend on adult and children’s services this year is equivalent to 87% of the budget agreed for 23/24.
Since 2011 Bradford Council has had to find over £350m in cuts and savings due to national austerity measures, inflation and increased demand. More recently exceptional inflation and energy prices have put additional pressure on budgets for all local authorities. Along with a number of other local authorities, and in order to set a balanced budget, Bradford Council is in ongoing discussion with Government about exceptional financial support.
We must make significant savings in order to reach overall financial sustainability which will be made through cutting services and increasing fees and services locally as well as longer term transformation.
These savings relate to the services that are directly provided or commissioned by us, and not those provided by the Bradford Children and Families Trust (BCFT). Children's social care delivered by the BCFT is currently forecast to spend equivalent to approximately half of our net budget this year, BCFT is also working on its own business plan to be agreed with us for 2024-25.
We are also talking to the Department for Education (DfE) about financial support for the Bradford Children and Families Trust to ensure that they can continue their improvement.
We continue to work closely with the BCFT to help support and reduce the rising on-going cost of children’s social care, have reviewed reserves, the capital programme, increased fees and charges, and begun to develop a wide-ranging transformation programme.
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe, Leader of Bradford Council, said: "No council should be having to choose between funding services for communities and neighbourhoods, and funding services for vulnerable children and adults, but that is the situation we find ourselves in.
"The demand for, and cost of, providing residential placements and home to school transport is unsustainable for many councils on top of the effects of inflation and reductions in central government funding since 2011.
"I am asking government to fix the dysfunctional children's social care market and fund local services effectively so that we can continue building a future that enables everyone in the Bradford district to make the best of opportunities available to them here.”
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