Like many businesses and households in the UK, North Somerset Council says it is seeing its own costs rise due to increasing energy prices and sharp inflationary rises in many areas. And these cost increases, as well as the increasing demand for services, means that the council is having to make some difficult decisions for its upcoming budget.
The council had a £17m gap to close - about 10% of its net budget and the council's Executive will meet next week for the first in a series of formal meetings to 'discuss, develop and agree' the organisation's medium term financial plan and council budget for 2023/24. It's expected that 'service reduction' will be 'inevitable' due to the rising costs the country is facing, however the council says it has already made "significant savings over the last 13 years of austerity".
It also adds that additional funding allocations from central government to support Covid recovery have come to an end and have not been replaced with revised measures to help tackle the rising inflation. This means the council is having to make budget preparations for the year ahead, it says, with "no certainty of the amounts of funding it will receive to support service delivery".
