A SENIOR west Cumbrian councillor has laid the blame for the current state of council finances on 13 years of austerity and greatly reduced funding from central government.

In September it was revealed that Cumberland Council is facing a predicted £29 million overspend in the budget mainly because of a number of reasons including an increased demand on services.

During Tuesday's (November 21) meeting of the council at the Civic Centre in Carlisle councillor Robert Betton (Botcherby, Independent Group) directed a question towards councillor Barbara Cannon (St Michaels, Labour), the portfolio holder for financial planning and assets.

He asked: "What is the executives plan to tackle the £29 million black hole in the budget and can you reassure the council taxpayers in Cumberland, who are already suffering from the cost-of-living crisis, that their council tax will not rise exponentially because of mismanagement of the budget?

"Can you also give a guarantee that you will not put this council further into debt by borrowing money when interest rates are so high, to plug the hole in the finances?"

Cllr Cannon said she rejected the premise of his question as 'the council had not mismanaged the budget'. She added: "We inherited a challenging financial position.

“The local government reform (LGR) settlement left us with a £9million deficit from day one, we have significant demand pressures in Childrens and Adult services, inflation is far higher that we have seen for some time, and we have significant transition costs from the LGR process.

"This is in addition to years of underfunding of local government. Therefore, we have significant pressures this year."

She said that the administration was working hard with officers to find a solution decisive action had already been taken in both Children’s and Adult services to mitigate in-year pressures.

"We are reviewing all other in-year pressures across the organisation to ensure that we can meet them,” she said.

"And we are developing a comprehensive transformation programme over the next five years that will put this council in a stable financial position and deliver against our council plan, putting health and wellbeing at the heart of everything that we do, protecting the most vulnerable and giving our children the best possible start in life.

"We will provide value for money for the people of Cumberland."

She said she had every confidence in the administration and the council to deliver against those objectives.

Cllr Cannon said that councillors should not be blaming each other for the current situation and added: "How about we blame those who are responsible?"

However, Cllr Betton said he feared that the council would find itself further in debt and asked: "Who is going to pay for all of this?"

Cllr Cannon replied that she had gone to a lot of trouble in recent weeks to spell out exactly how the budget was set every year and added: "We will set the budget and you will be part of it."