Councils’ funding settlement expected on Thursday, claims LCC leader

It was also claimed by a senior member that recent plans to make more than 900 staff redundant and significantly reduce services next year would still not plug the expected £118m funding shortfall next year.

The leader of the council’s opposition Conservative group welcomed the expected announcement, adding “painful” decisions must be made at all levels of government.

Leeds City Council bosses hope the government’s revenue support grant, which has been cut massively over the past decade, will be increased next year to help account for some of the authority’s expected £118m budget black hole for 2021/22 – around half of which is said to be caused by loss of revenue and extra costs related to the Covid-19 pandemic this year.

Speaking to a meeting of the council’s Executive Board, Coun Judith Blake (Lab) said: “I understand, and I’m sure we’ll get confirmation of this, that we will receive the final settlement tomorrow. That is my understanding of the situation.

“So we still don’t have the final settlement before us and the proposals put forward by executive board have been put forward for consultation.

“There is still a lot of work to do before we get to the final budget-settling meeting in February.”

Council deputy leader James Lewis added: “When we come to February, we will have to deliver a fully-balanced budget, and this still doesn’t exactly balance at this stage. We are waiting for the settlement and other moneys.

“The money for adult social care we thought we were receiving as a grant and instead gave us the option of raising more council tax in the form of the adult social care precept.”

Government recently announced councils would have the power to add an extra three percent onto council tax increases, in order to help meet adult social care costs.

Coun Lewis said the proposed budget did not state its final decision on whether to use the precept, and that “further work” was needed to decide, adding it would be “regretful given the year some of our residents have had.”

Leader of the Conservatives group Coun Andrew Carter said: “I am pleased the revenue support grant settlement is coming tomorrow. I think there was some concern it might be delayed. We also have announcements on Covid restrictions.

“Within this paper, most of the savings your administration have been suggesting are still up to press, but some of them are still out to consultation.

“Nobody wants to see council tax go up unduly, but it’s difficult to accept that on the one hand the council says ‘we never have the ability to take decisions ourselves’, but when it comes to being given an option you complain about it, presumably because it is a painful set of options.

“Well, I’m afraid to say, painful options are there for all of us at every level of government, so it is unfortunate to be moaning about that.”

Liberal Democrats group leader Coun Stewart Golton said: “Through the lack of certainty about what the council is going to do, it makes these draft proposals even more vague, because the assumption so far is that the council will take the full precept.

“If the council chooses not to, and to divide it up over a couple of years, we will be facing further cuts that aren’t mentioned at all.

“We do need to think why it has taken a crisis like Covid to do this cross-departmental work to ensure the work that we do is as cost effective and efficient as possible.

“Some of the decisions we find in this is departmental salami slicing, that reduces services to a minimum, while other areas of the city get a higher level of service.”

A final draft of Leeds City Council’s 2021/22 budget is set to be published in February.