Nottinghamshire County Council’s Councillor Stuart Matthews, Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources, reflects on a year of identifying savings and building sound financial foundations.
Cllr Matthews said:
‘As the Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources, I’d like to take this opportunity to look back at my first year in office and how this administration is looking to the future and building on the achievements of the last 12 months.
‘I described this as a journey when I stood up at the Full Council meeting in February to introduce the Budget for 2026/27. I referred to my own business experience and the new cohort of councillors, and how we would continue to meet the demands of our communities whilst spending taxpayers’ money effectively and wisely.
‘When I took this privileged position last May, I inherited a funding gap of £18.5m and, from what I could see, there were no plans for how that gap would be closed.
‘By October, we discovered that this funding gap had been understated by £43.1m, with the true picture materialising as a gap of £61.6m, which also relied on using nearly £28m of reserves.
‘The Cabinet Efficiency Working Group identified savings and measures that we needed to put in place to balance the books. I recognised that we needed to identify and implement in-year efficiencies, together with strengthening financial management, procurement, and contract oversight.
‘In-year savings have included £3m in savings from the use of agency staff and £1m on pension fund management fees. However, this is more about changing the culture, where every decision to spend money starts with asking what we are trying to achieve and whether we can do this more efficiently.
‘A few examples include saving £80,000 on clinical waste disposal costs, £23,000 on the purchase of vehicles, £43,000 on language services, and £120,000 on ICT cloud-based services, through to £1.8m from internalising some adult care services.
‘I identified £45m of savings and efficiencies, concentrating efforts on prevention services.
‘By supporting families and the most vulnerable adults and children in our communities early, we help to reduce the demand for council services at a later stage. Therefore, the focus was firmly on supporting children, families, adults with disabilities, and older people, whilst at the same time looking to transform our services by working more collaboratively with public sector partners and making more efficient use of our collective financial resources.’
‘The chronic underfunding of SEND services has been a national issue for some years, as we know that per-head funding in Nottinghamshire has always been lower than in other councils.
‘Meeting needs will result in an overspend on the High Needs Block of £37m this year.
‘The Government has promised reform and recently announced some funding towards the accumulated deficits, but there is still no news on tackling the ongoing shortfall in funding or the long-awaited reform of SEND. Unfortunately, this will continue to feel like a ticking fiscal timebomb for some time to come.
‘I am pleased that this administration has successfully lobbied for more funding for our highways, and we recently announced a record-breaking £180m investment in the county’s roads for 2026/27. We are determined to bring our roads up to an acceptable standard that our residents deserve, so this is unquestionably one of our key priorities.
‘This is very much a team effort, with the Leader, Cabinet colleagues, and officers working to improve the lives of our residents. Using my 50 years of experience in business, I am proud that I have improved the fiscal discipline of this authority.
‘My mission is to change the culture, save money where we can, transform our services, and deliver a sound financial future for this Council.’
