Councillors lobby government minister in campaign to get fairer funding for Leicestershire

County Hall has published a budget update which shows a £9million overspend this year as the costs of children’s and adult social care rocket.

Inflation, the National Living Wage and increasing pressures on vital services are driving up the council’s costs and could push its budget shortfall over £100million by 2027.

Council leader Nick Rushton insisted there was no immediate risk of the council having to issue a section 114 notice, which would prevent it from making new spending commitments, as recently happened with Birmingham City Council.

But he said: “Our latest financial forecast typifies the grim reality facing councils up and down the country.

"Let me be clear – we’re not about to issue a section 114 notice.

"We’re super-efficient and pride ourselves on doing the best we can with the money we have, but spiralling costs are making it much harder to keep our head above water.”

He thanked the minister for meeting with him and colleagues, adding: “With many other well run authorities also facing similar pressures, local government is reaching new territory.

“We have a credible solution which can be implemented quickly and the minister reassured us he would take our comments back to Government.”

The meeting with Mr Rowley followed what the council called ‘constructive talks’ with the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, in Westminster, which saw a pragmatic, temporary fix set out which would see government put in an extra £350million to level up 32 of the lowest funded councils.

Following his meeting with leading County Hall figures, Mr Rowley said: “In particular, I welcomed and am grateful for the very helpful conversation we had on the council's funding and the pressure that the council is currently seeing in some service areas.

"The government will bring forward its proposals for the Local Government Finance Settlement 2024-25 in the usual way later in the year and it is always very useful to get frontline feedback as to what is happening at the current time.

“I look forward to our continuing engagement in the months ahead.”

Councillors debated the authority’s worrying financial position at their latest cabinet meeting.

They heard that intensive work is taking place to focus on managing future demand and continue to reduce the forecast overspend.

Commenting on the council’s meeting with Mr Rowley, Councillor Lee Breckon, Leicestershire’s cabinet member for resources, said: “The minister was keen to hear our views.

"We know that national funding is stretched but our feedback is reaching the right people.

“After saving £250million since 2010, we’re already a very lean organisation – and we can't be expected to carry on as we are without help.

"All we can do is continue to operate efficiently and target our resource at those who need it the most.”

Leicestershire County Council says that if it was funded at the average level for English councils, it would receive an extra £130million a year.