WHILE Cumberland Council is in the process of putting together its budget for the next financial year officers are continuing to monitor the authority's finances to make sure the current budget remains balanced, new figures have shown.

Senior councillors agreed, in their executive meeting on October 15, the process for its Budget Strategy 2025 to 2026 which is set for approval at next month's meeting of the full council.

The council’s budget strategy outlines how it aims to ensure it can have a priority led balanced budget over the medium term, that is realistic and supported by achievable savings plans.

According to a council spokesman it acknowledges the council is continuing to face challenging budget pressures. These pressures include increasing demand for services, most notably in social care, and the long-term impacts of the pandemic, all set alongside the backdrop of the cost of living crisis including rising inflation and energy prices.

The council also has an approved Transformation Programme which aims to change the way it operates and delivers services, continue the work on realising the opportunities and benefits of becoming a unitary council and address the budget gaps.

The council's net revenue budget requirement for the current financial year stands at £319.01 million and the planned savings represent 11.79 percent of that figure.

In addition, according to figures from the BBC Shared Data Unit the council has a predicted cumulative shortfall for 2026 to 2027 of £17.77 million.

According to the BBC Shared Data Unit the council has a facility for £41.23 million in Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) from the Government which will allow the authority to use capital resources to fund the revenue investment.

According to the council's Budget 2024-25 and Medium-Term Financial Plan, which was approved in March this year, the council used £10 million from the EFS as well as £0.964m in earmarked reserves and general fund balances to deliver a balanced budget for 2024 to 2025 to bring the net service expenditure budget to £329.978 million.

The £319.01 million figure is made up from areas such as: general grants, council tax; business rates retention (BRR) funding; the collection fund surplus/(deficit) and the planned use of earmarked balances.

Councillor Barbara Cannon, the financial planning and assets portfolio holder, said: "Nationally councils are facing significant pressures on their budgets.

"As our Budget Strategy points out, 'between 2010 and 2020, councils are estimated to have lost 40 percent of core government funding on average, at a time when demand for core services has risen relentlessly.'

"The ambition of Cumberland Council is to maximise the opportunities of becoming a unitary council and to develop a modern organisation and culture that is more effective and efficient.

"During our first year a significant amount of work has been undertaken to lay the groundwork for transformation over the coming years.

"Local councils in Cumbria received no government support for the initial costs associated by local government reorganisation and bringing the councils together."

She said that work to integrate and harmonise services across Cumberland was complex and required some initial investment through prudential borrowing – in such things as ICT – as the council transformed the way services were delivered.

She added: "The impact of high inflation, cuts in government grants alongside increased demand for many of our services, has also added to the challenging financial landscape for us, as it has for councils up and down the country.

"We await the new government’s first budget at the end of October and continue to call for the Fair Funding Review to be completed.

"We made huge progress in the first financial year of the council to close any budget gaps and deliver a balanced budget for the year.

"The first quarter’s forecast for this financial year is currently showing a small overspend (less than 0.5 percent of gross budget) and work will continue to close this gap."

Cllr Cannon said that the council took a risk-based approach to the budget, by closely monitoring progress on our plans which is regularly reported to the audit committee and external auditors.

She added: "Our medium-term financial plan sets out how we will continue being financially sustainable over the next few years. We have also agreed our Asset Strategy for the effective use and disposal of assets.

"Our transformation plan seeks to make our services more effective, put us on a more stable financial footing in the future, as well as realise the opportunities of local government reorganisation.

"This transformation plan looks across our services to ensure we are innovative with the assets and technology that is available to us, as well as provide effective and efficient services to meet the needs of the people of Cumberland.

"The plans also set out how we will take a preventative approach to service delivery, working collaboratively with partners, to ensure any issues don’t escalate further, and become more costly, in the long-term, whilst still delivering improved services for our residents.”