Budget cuts of £19.5m needed to balance council books

Budget proposals could see increases in parking charges and council tax alongside the streamlining of internal council services.

At the same time, mayor Marvin Rees’ administration argues that their saving proposals will “prevent cuts to services much valued by citizens”.

Bristol City Council face the challenge of bridging a £19.5m budget gap in funding for 2022-23.

During a press briefing on Monday morning outlining the spending plan, Rees was deeply critical of the shrinking funding determined by central government, calling Westminster’s relationship with local authorities “broken” and “out of date”.

Despite the strained funds, the council promises that frontline services, including libraries, children’s centres and social care programmes, will be protected from the deficit.

As well as this, the Labour-led council hopes to pledge £12m for the decarbonisation of their own properties.

The plans also reveal plans to increase parking charges within residential parking zones (RPZs), moving “beyond the 30 minutes of free parking”. It is hoped that this would save £500,000.

However, the shortfall will be “first and foremost” rebalanced by looking inward at reducing the council’s own internal management costs, according to the cabinet papers.

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“There’s a heavy emphasis within this budget of reducing costs within the council,” said Rees.

“That’s looking at our own systems and looking at the costs of services that we procure, as well as making sure we are getting value for money.

Rees suggested he hopes to partner with organisations in the private sector to provide support for people, saying “charities like Nilaari are much better placed to deliver mental health services to some people than that of the National Health Service”.

He also said that “delivering affordable homes is one of the single most significant policy tools we have available to us”, and called the proposals a “house-building budget” in line with this.

Within the ‘general fund’, there is a £250m commitment over three years to build homes through companies like Goram Homes, the council’s own housing developer.

Rees promised that 2,069 new council homes will also be built over several years as part of the ‘housing revenue account’.

The current caravan park at Baltic Wharf is one of the areas of land across Bristol which council-owned Goram Homes hope to develop – image: Hill

Rees – long of an advocate for decentralisation – criticised Westminster for putting local authorities in a state of such financial pressure.

He said: “The nature of the financial relationship with the central government is broken; it’s out of date.

“We need an adequate level of funding to meet the challenges and take the opportunities that we face as local authorities.”

The mayor lamented a national context of “12 years of austerity, which is actually 12 years of disinvestment in local government”.

“This over-dependence of local authorities on decisions being made in Whitehall undermines our ability to plan, have steady finance and be a predictable partner.”

The council’s raft of proposals will go to a cabinet meeting on January 18, who will then make a recommendation to the full council for the annual budget meeting in February.

Main photo by Martin Booth

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