By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
A public consultation has launched over £16m in cuts as part of Nottingham City Council’s efforts to bring down a multi-million pound gap in its budget next year.
The Labour-run authority is facing a £69m gap in its budget in the year beginning April 2025, rising to a cumulative £172m in the next three years.
A report published on Monday (December 9) revealed a raft of new savings and cuts totalling £24.191m to 2028/29, with £17.91m to be delivered in 2025/26.
Of these, planned savings totalling £16m must go out for public consultation, which launched on Tuesday (December 17).
During an Executive Board meeting on Tuesday, Cllr Linda Woodings (Lab), the executive member for finance, said: “The budget proposals that we put forward today for public consultation are a further step on our road to becoming a financially resilient council that can invest in the vital spaces that matter most to our residents.
“Like other councils we continue to face huge pressures in caring for older people, people with disabilities, supporting families and looking after children in our care, and people being made homeless.
“Together those pressures are squeezing out other services. That is not an excuse, we know delivering statutory services to some of our most vulnerable citizens is our duty as custodians, but what that means is we have a stretched budget and we must decide how best to allocate our limited funding.”
The proposed savings the council is consulting on include:
- Improving digital access through development of the website and digital forms, shifting demand to more efficient service delivery to save £29,000.
- Conducting a council-wide IT review to rationalise applications, systems, licenses, and subscriptions, ensuring business continuity and cost savings to save £100,000.
- Reducing costs and improving efficiency by streamlining layers of management and team sizes to save £5.3m.
- Improving productivity and managing staffing budgets by reducing sickness rates and enhancing performance management to save £3.5m.
- Effective management of vacant posts through an initiative to manage vacancies more prudently to save £6.6m.
- Introducing commercial expertise to reduce third-party spending and improve procurement processes to save £500,000.
Proposals that will not require consultation include reviewing one-to-one and two-to-one support hours for those receiving help from adult social care services, as well as high-cost packages, as well as bringing the council’s museums service under a charitable development trust and exhibitions company.
The museums service currently directly runs Wollaton Hall, Newstead Abbey, Nottingham Industrial Museum, the Museum of Nottingham Life, and Nottingham Castle.
The council says the new model will “secure financial sustainability by increasing revenue and reduce operating costs”, with savings in the region of £1.150m between 2025/26 and 2028/29.
During the meeting Cllr Andrew Rule, of the Nottingham Independents and Independent Group, questioned just how much control the authority would retain and how different it would be from the Nottingham Castle Trust, which went into liquidation 18 months after the castle reopened.
Colin Parr, director for communities, environment and resident services, said there would be no staffing changes and emphasised it would be a” fundamentally different model”.
The council would also keep a level of managerial oversight that wasn’t there under the Nottingham Castle Trust.
The authority says it is still working to fill its in-year budget gap, which has risen from £2.882m to £4.687m.
This is despite the use of £41m in Exceptional Financial Support, an accounting mechanism granted by the Government to allow the council to use property sales to fund day-to-day costs.
Stuart Fair, the council’s head of finance, said there is “cause for optimism” and active steps are being taken to reduce the gap.
