Savings of £17 million needed to meet budget pressures
Plymouth City Council is to lobby ministers for more cash
Plymouth City Council is to lobby ministers for more cash as it needs to allocate an additional £25.7 million into social care and support services for the city’s most vulnerable residents.
The council has to make £17 million of savings to balance its budget, unless more funding comes forward..
Demand in social care, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and homelessness continue to grow. These services make up three quarters of the council’s budget.
Despite the government issuing long awaited multi year financial settlements to local authorities for the forthcoming year rather than annual ones which had become the norm, meaning they can plan their finances better, the provisional amount has not provided enough to cover the pressures in Plymouth.
The government’s measure of core spending power, which is the total funding available to local authorities for delivering core services, shows an increase for Plymouth of £15.9 million or five per cent on 2025/26. This assumes that council tax will rise to the maximum level of 2.99 per cent.
Cabinet member for finance Cllr Mark Lowry (Lab, Southway) showed cabinet members the break down of where additional funds needed to be allocated at a meeting on Monday; children’s social care and placements (£9.4 million), SEND home to school transport (£2 million); adult social care (£11.1 million); homelessness prevention (£623,000); short breaks (£1.2 million); and the Dedicated School Grant deficit funding (£1.6 million).
Among the savings proposed are invest to save projects like an in-house therapy team and council run children’s homes, reducing the need for high cost independent residential placements, and cabinet proposals yet to be finalised.
The council is also looking at its underlying financing arrangements for debt and financial investment portfolios which it says could provide additional one-off revenue funding for 2026/27 of up to £9.7 million.
Government politicians are set to be lobbied to ensure Plymouth’s funding is both “maximised and equitable” and will be asked to look at some of the numbers again.
Plymouth City Council will use its “good relations” with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to hopefully make headway.
A report to the cabinet said it would be “another difficult financial year for the council, but cabinet and officers are aware of the challenges and will continue to closely monitor the finances during 2025/26.”
Chief finance officer David Northey has put his retirement on hold for a second time to see the council through the budget-setting process after the previous role holder Ian Trisk-Grove resigned eight months into the job.
Plymouth topped the chart for borrowing levels of all the Devon councils in 2024/25. The amount stands at around £700,000 but has been predicted to rise to one £1 billion in a couple of years.
Mr Northey said there had been “some difficult decisions” to get the draft budget to balanced position.
He said it was great to get a three-year settlement but added: “It would have been better if they (the government) had given us more growth but we can start planning and cutting our cloth.”
On the plus side councillors were told that the previous one-off grants from the government were now all part of the revenue support grant and the budget stood at £318 million with the capital programme around the same amount.
The council will use the revenue grant to support its 300 services.
Council tax is expected to go up to the maximum, without calling a referendum, of 2.99 per cent with a two per cent additional, ring-fenced adult social care precept.
Cllr Lowry said: “Even with the challenges, we remain committed to our ambitious vision for the city and ensuring that Plymouth residents benefit from work to secure and create jobs, provide affordable housing, increase community safety, support better transport, while protecting services for children, vulnerable adults and supporting those affected by homelessness.
“At all times we remain acutely aware of the ongoing financial pressures and economic challenges facing households across Plymouth and will continue striving to provide the best possible value for money that we can.”
Councillors will spend two days scrutinising all the figures before the draft budget comes back to the cabinet in February and the council tax is set.
They will also look at feedback from a public engagement carried out at the end of last year which asked residents what their priorities were from a list of options including fewer potholes, more homes, jobs, skills, working with the NHS for better healthcare and working with the police to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour.
Council leader Tudor Evans (Lab, Ham), who was attending his first meeting since being off ill for several weeks in the run up to Christmas, said with annual settlements the council had been on annual rations for 15 years.
He added that the council was by no means relaxed and that it was “still in a straight jacket” but “belts were a bit looser than they have been in the past”.
He said it was hard for finance officers to think differently after being forced “into a 12 month box”.
He said he wanted “a war on miserablism” and that there were grounds for optimism with a six per cent increase in footfall in the city centre and the number of empty shops reducing.
He told cabinet members that much work had gone into attracting attracted external investment in Plymouth and hoped that would continue with big ticket projects like the Armada Way regeneration and the National Marine Park
“Plymouth is a place that is on the national radar now and a place to go for commercial investment.
“We work hard to get people to take notice of Plymouth and it is our time now.”