Devon County Council is to make nearly £50 million of service delivery cuts next year. It says it has increased funding for services but more than £93 million of its £743 million 2024-25 service delivery budget is to cover inflation, wage and other costs increases on last year.
It euphemistically describes many of its planned service delivery cuts as “savings” in an apparent gloss of what it elsewhere calls a strategy of “living within our means”.
It also plans to “make savings” by selling off council-owned property and cutting staff numbers, although it will retain well over 5,000 employees.
Councillor Phillip Twiss, who is responsible for finance at County Hall, said the county council would provide “better outcomes at lower cost”.
In reality it will deliver fewer services at greater cost in 2024-25 than it has in 2023-24.
Devon County Council will cut climate change, environment and transport services by £4.6 million by spending less on highways and infrastructure development and removing unfilled posts within the department, among other things.
Costs increases of £8.5 million mean this service will see a net budget increase of £3.9 million.
It will cut corporate services by £4.8 million, the lion’s share of which will come from staffing reductions. This means a real-terms budget reduction of £1.3 million despite the department facing “increasing demands for legal support in respect of childcare and safeguarding adults, contract and procurement support and financial pressures on the coroner’s service”.
Its public health, communities and prosperity budget will also fall in real terms, with cuts of £1.6 million including £210,000 to the county community grants programme and £300,000 to libraries.
Adult social care and children’s services together make up nearly four-fifths of the county council’s overall service delivery budget.
2024-25 adult social care service delivery cuts of £29.4 million will be masked by a net £20.5 million budget increase.
The county council says achieving this “will require significant operational redesign and rigour and may impact further on already challenging assessment waiting times, on the organisation’s prevention agenda, ensuring a sufficient market and our partnership working”.
Children’s services delivery will also be cut next year, by £9 million, but a £30.6 million budget allocation for inflation, wage and other costs increases will mean a net spending increase of £21.5 million year on year.
The council has been overspending on SEND services in order to meet demand. It expects its cumulative budget deficit against this service to reach more than £165 million by the end of this month.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) protesters at County Hall
The county council’s 2024-25 budget was published in outline at the beginning of January then presented at no fewer than five council meetings before being agreed on 15 February at a meeting of the full council.
After being nodded through a cabinet meeting on 10 January, a report focussed on the children and young people’s futures budget was presented to a scrutiny committee on 18 January, another report on the adult social care budget was presented to a second scrutiny committee the following week and another budget report covering the remaining service delivery areas was presented to a third scrutiny committee meeting the following day.
Angie Sinclair, the county council’s finance director, told committee members that “scrutiny is an important part of our budget setting process so we welcome your engagement with the process”.
However, several councillors asked questions about the figures in the reports at these meetings without receiving the answers they were looking for from finance officers.
Opposition leader Liberal Democrat county councillor Caroline Leaver wanted to know what the proposed cuts would mean in practice, asking who would be affected, but was not told.
Labour county councillor Carol Whitton said she had no problem with the council’s intention to “achieve better value for money” but pointed out that during the 2023-24 budget-setting process key detail outlining who would be impacted by spending changes was missed.
She added that scrutiny committee members should be given such information, and that officers’ reticence had caused “a lot of problems through the year”.
Independent councillor Jess Bailey and Conservative councillor Phil Bullivant both also asked for details of which services and staffing areas would be cut and who would be affected, but did not get proper answers.
Tandra Forster, adult social care director, said that the committee reports didn’t include exact costs because each individual would be “given the care they need”.
Council leader John Hart speaking at the 2024-25 budget meeting at County Hall
By the time the budget figures were presented to the full council meeting on 15 February they were essentially unchanged from those published at the beginning of January, apparently unaffected by the budget scrutiny process.
The only substantive alteration was a mention of additional funding, following a late-January Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities announcement that the government would give an extra £600 million to England’s 317 local authorities, of which £500 million would be reserved for social care costs.
The county council did not say exactly how much of this extra money it would receive, but officers estimated it would get an extra £1.38 million for rural services delivery and an extra £7.45 million for social care. Put together these sums represent just 1% of its 2024-25 services delivery budget.
Council leader Conservative councillor John Hart predictably welcomed the increase in government spending despite a Local Government Association warning that it would be nowhere near enough to address the £4 billion funding gap councils in England face over the next two years.
Carol Whitton also welcomed the extra money but asked “after twelve years of Tory cuts how much fat can there possibly be left to cut back?”
Caroline Leaver said that the county council was facing the worst budget position “it had ever seen”, adding that “every single councillor here who votes for this budget will be responsible for the cuts that follow”.
Both Liberal Democrat and Independent and Green opposition groups proposed balanced budget amendments, which included additional funding for road safety improvements and restoration of funding to Libraries Unlimited to increase community library provision.
The ruling Conservative group voted both amendments down, then voted unanimously in favour of their own budget proposals.
