Plans to address a £30 million gap at Coventry City Council will be made public later this year.

For the past two years, the road next to the Coventry City Council building has been partially closed.

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Coventry City Council will have to make “difficult decisions” as it works to avoid filing for effective bankruptcy with a Section 114 notice the following year. According to the council, social care currently consumes 70% of its budget due to excessive prices and demand.

It asserts that “significant” more government funding is required to cover this as well as broader reforms to the way municipalities are paid. However, the council emphasized that it is not planning to submit a Section 114 notice at this time and would instead be inquiring about anticipated savings from the public later this year.

It follows news from yesterday (3 October) that, in the absence of more government money, the council would have to file for bankruptcy in actuality the next year. Almost £60 billion is now available for local government in England, according to a spokeswoman for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities. “Local authorities have witnessed an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £5.1 billion or 9.4% in cash terms on 2022/23.

READ MORE: Coventry leisure centres and parks at risk if council goes bankrupt next year

“For Coventry Council, this represents an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £30.5 million, making available a total of up to £335.3 million in 2023-24, with an additional £13.9 million in social care grants. “We stand ready to speak to any council that has concerns about its ability to manage its finances or faces pressures it has not anticipated.

Questions regarding this were directed at the council by the Local Democracy Reporting Service. The comments from a spokesman are as follows:

For the upcoming fiscal year, the council will need to find savings or new funds of more than £30 million. It will take a lot of challenging decisions to be taken if we and many other local authorities that are in a similar situation are to prevent an S114 in the future.

Given the cost and demand strains on social care funds — our spending on social care alone accounts for 70% of our entire budget — this will have an impact on many local services. To address these difficulties, which have not been taken into account in previous budget agreements, we think a large amount of extra cash is needed across the industry.

Additionally, we think that the local government funding system as a whole needs revision and that our allotment does not accurately represent our proportional need. Later this year, as part of the process of preparing the budget for 2024/25, we will consult on a variety of savings ideas.

Using reserves is not sustainable beyond the very short term and does not offer a lasting solution, but we have done so in the past and may very well need to do so for this fiscal year. Only a comprehensive overhaul of the way the industry is supported as a whole would be able to address the issue Coventry and an increasing number of local governments are currently facing.

“We already use the profits from investments and stock ownership to help us create a balanced budget each year. Without it, more cuts would have been necessary in previous years.

Coventry won’t be publishing a section 114 notice, it said. We are stating that if we do nothing and there is no reform to the local government’s overall financial arrangement, then we will soon be forced to.

The purpose of bringing up this topic at this time is to draw attention to the ongoing issue of local government finance and to spread awareness that some very tough decisions must be made in order to prevent the necessity for a 114 notice.