Suffolk County Council has unveiled plans to generate around £74 million of investment for those who are in greatest need.
Increasing demand for things such as adult care and children’s services, as well as rising inflation, have led to council finances in all corners of the country suffering, forcing authorities to make tough decisions on how to prioritise the services that they provide.
These decisions include ways that Suffolk Council can make £64.7 million worth of savings across 2024/25 and 2025/26. The proposals for achieving this include:
- Council restructuring and changing the ways that services are delivered to save on £11 million of staffing costs.
- Extending the Adult Social Care Transformation programme to allow £30.6 million of additional savings.
- Saving £500,000 by halting core funding to organisations in the Art and Museum sector.
- Centralising Suffolk Archives, saving £140,000.
- Using £15.9 million worth of reserves to balance the budget to 2024/25.
Councillor Richard Stout, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Environment at Suffolk County Council, said:
“This is the most challenging budget-setting process the council has faced for many years. But once again, we are putting adult and children’s care at the heart of our plans.
“However, in order to ensure appropriate levels of funding for these key services, and those most in need in Suffolk, we must make difficult decisions about all the other services we deliver, and how we deliver them.
“This is necessary because the demand on council services for those most in need in Suffolk is at an all-time high. The cost of providing many of those services is significant, but the funding that we need is not keeping up. Across the country, councils are having to make similar tough choices.
“Our proposed budget next year will be around £752 million, of which £105 million alone is down to these cost pressures from inflation and increased demand.
“We are a well-run council and over the last five years, we have saved £66 million by working smarter and leaner. But we now need to go even further.
“We have spent months scrutinising all the council’s spending. There is competition for every pound across all our services, and I understand that each service means something to someone.”
With the provisional Local Government Financial Settlement published by the government in December, Suffolk County Council confirmed that they won’t be receiving enough funding to keep up with inflation or service demand. The full details of Suffolk County Councils plans for the 2024/25 will be presented to its scrutiny committee later this month, with this being made up of different funding streams. These funding streams include government investment, business rates, and charges for services, as well as council tax. A 4.99% increase in council tax would be applied in this case, with a 2.99% increase in general council tax coming alongside a 2% increase in dedicated adult care funding.
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