By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
The Labour administration at Nottingham City Council has been accused of failing to address a “cultural failure of running things” after it announced savings totalling £29m to try to fill a budget black hole of £32m.
A fresh round of savings and cuts have been proposed in an attempt to bridge the gap, which the city council argues has been largely created due to dwindling financial support from central Government.
The leader of Nottingham’s Conservative Group however says the council’s failure to review fees and charges for services such as leisure centres and cafes, until now, have gone some way to compounding its financial difficulties.
The council will present a new budget and medium term financial plan next week, as it makes a bid to set out financial targets for the next four years and satisfy a Government-appointed improvement board which is watching its progress.
Some of the cuts will mean a workforce reduction of 110 full-time equivalent posts will be needed alongside a five per cent tax hike, changes to adult social care, grants to community groups, a review of prices at council-owned leisure centres and cafes and the mothballing of two floors at Loxley House.
A further £3m of savings will then be required by February.
Since 2014 an annual support grant from the Government has reduced from £126.8m to £26.7m, or almost £700 per resident, which the council says is the primary reason for its problems.
Cllr Adele Williams, deputy leader and portfolio holder for finance for the council, spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service following the announcement of the draft budget.
She said: “All councillors, certainly all Labour councillors, will be really worried about the continued impact of the savings they are having to make every year, to fill the hole in council budgets.
“We are still waiting for the full picture of what the national Government allocation will be, but we don’t expect sparkling generosity.
“At every stage in the budget process we are always seeking to protect the things Nottingham needs and values as much as we can.
“We wouldn’t be in the position of having to make them had the Government maintained the level of funding for cities like Nottingham.
“Council tax is no way to fund local services and adult social care, it is completely unfair.”
The council has itself lost large sums of money in the collapse of Robin Hood Energy, the costs of which sits at roughly £38m, as well as almost £3m amid the liquidation of the Nottingham Castle Trust and around half of the £18m invested in the Broadmarsh site after shopping centre owners intu entered administration.
Cllr Andrew Rule (Con), the leader of the council’s Conservative group, argued these issues have left the council with no “cushion” to fall back on, with its reserves down by a further £7m on what it had in March 2022.
He says the council now has no choice but to make significant cuts, and argued the administration should have been reviewing fees and prices of services much earlier and more consistently.
“Large numbers of posts are being removed from the council’s customer services,” Cllr Rule says.
“What are those residents who don’t have access to help electronically going to do?
“We ought to remember that, at the same time as deleting these positions, Nottingham Labour has restructured the senior management structure, costing £800,000.
“The council is reviewing and revisiting pricing for all those little cafes along the Victoria Embankment and such, saving £20,000 a year for the next four years, but why are they only now looking at that?
“Surely you would be doing that ongoing throughout the year? They did the same with their property leases last year, I think there is a capacity issue and a cultural failure in running things, and having the gumption and mindset to run things on a commercial basis.
“I think they are thinking, ‘well we haven’t in the past’, well, times are tough.”
And responding to the council’s argument over lesser funding from Government, Cllr Rule added: “I do not dispute the Revenue Support Grant (RSG) has gone down, but in its place there have been replacements.
“It has been replaced by direct grants which, granted, the council has to provide justification for via a business case, but you can’t blame the Government for that, given the failures with Robin Hood Energy and governance in the past.
“With the revenue support grant they like that, because they can spend that how they like, but for the Government they are saying; ‘we trusted you with the revenue support grant for years, but if you can’t govern yourselves then we will want to see justification’ for that.”
In the latest round of savings the council is also proposing to cut the Shopmobility service at the Victoria Centre, which provides free motorised wheelchairs to shoppers with mobility issues.
It follows cuts to other services used by minority groups, including children’s centres and youth services.
“It is important to note that this is a consultation and we have shown before that we are serious about consulting with the city,” Cllr Williams added.
“It is a set of budget proposals intended to minimise the impact on citizens, but nonetheless it is impossible to avoid, with cuts of this magnitude, an impact on people in the city.
“I would 100 per cent land responsibility for the difficulties that all councils have in balancing their budgets and being able to meet their statutory duty alongside supporting our cities as places where people can thrive.
“Any issues that are local to Nottingham are absolutely dwarfed by the level that is stripped out of Nottingham’s budget year on year.”
