Nottingham City Council’s recent consultation is expected to have limited influence in stopping significant cuts to services, councillors say.
A Government-appointed improvement board overseeing critical changes has given the Labour-run authority a new set of instructions – ordering it to “maximise” savings.
Sweeping cuts to jobs, youth services, funding for community organisations, libraries, public transport infrastructure and more have been proposed in a bid to fill a £53m future budget black hole.
• Nottingham: How the city council’s proposed cuts affect every resident
The council also issued a Section 114 notice in November, effectively declaring bankruptcy, amid a separate in-year budget gap of £23m.
Despite a consultation on the cuts amassing more than 5,000 responses, the instructions from the improvement board effectively “tie the hands” of councillors in how savings might be adapted to reduce the impact on communities, the council’s leader said.
Cllr David Mellen (Lab), the leader of the council, said: “There are limited opportunities to influence, but we are looking at all the consultation responses and seeing how we might mitigate any savings we reluctantly have to make and also the ways in which they can be implemented.
“We are still looking at alternatives and going through things again and again to see whether there is another way of saving the same amount of money, but it is quite difficult.
“It is councillors who have to agree the budget in March, but the instruction is that [the chief finance officer] must put forward anything that he and his colleagues think is viable, which means some of the things councillors have been briefed on before Christmas, but not given agreement to, will still have to be brought forward.
“That is a unique position to be in in my 22 years on the council. The Labour Group has always agreed, sometimes reluctantly, but agreed proposals that come forward to be put to the whole council.
“That will not be the case this time unless we can find alternatives, which we might be able to do in some cases but not all.”
Cllr Mellen added the improvement board has “taken away the democratic electoral mandate that was given to Nottingham Labour in last year’s local elections”.
As an emergency measure to the financial crisis the council is seeking exceptional financial support, for £25m for the current year and up to £40m for the next.
This is because even with the proposed cuts a budget gap of £33.2m remains, and the council also has an in-year gap of £23m to fill.
Support will come in the form of loans and special permission to raise money from council assets and spend it on operational costs.
The authority is also awaiting a decision from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on the appointment of commissioners, who would take control away from elected councillors and put it in the hands of officials to make decisions.
Cllr Andrew Rule (Ind) said: “I think we are on the road of no return.
“It is particularly clear that if we do not balance our budget we are going to get commissioners and it may be too late to prevent that now.
“We are already in a position where everything we have proposed to save does not fill the gap and we are relying on Exceptional Financial Support.
“But Exceptional Financial Support is a one-off. Even if we it to mitigate the cuts this time, it will come around again next time. We will just be prolonging the inevitable.
“And the thing about the support is that it has strings attached.”
