Authority facing £180m black hole says no residents will be put in danger by ‘radical’ cuts

Crisis-hit Northamptonshire county council has voted to push ahead with a radical cuts strategy to reduce services to a bare legal minimum, as it attempts to close a financial black hole which it says could grow to £180m within three years.

Budget crisis takes Northamptonshire council into uncharted territory Read more

The strategy aims for “radical service reductions and efficiencies” across a range of areas, including children’s services and adult social care as it moves to a stripped back “core offer” to residents.

The Tory leader of the council, Matthew Golby, promised that no residents would be put in danger by the cuts, and that the council would meet its legal obligations to deliver vital services.

“Frankly, we are not going to give up. It is the most challenging thing me and my colleagues have ever been faced with,” he said.

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Opposition councillors warned that vulnerable children and elderly and disabled adults would put at risk by the cuts, which came as a result of “catastrophic” decisions made by the Conservative leadership.

The core offer policy adopted by the council states it will only deliver “those services which we are obliged to deliver in line with our statutory duties”. It warns that “this is the best service offer we are likely to be able to afford”.

There were few details of the coming cuts at the meeting, though the strategy makes it clear that as well as cutbacks to core services, so-called non-core services could be eliminated, or transferred to local charities or parish councils.

The strategy, under which the council will seek to make £70m of cuts from its £440m budget over the next few months, was opposed by opposition Labour, Liberal Democrat and independent councillors. One Tory councillor voted against.



Northampton’s council meeting comes amid rising concern about the funding crisis facing local authorities. Up to 15 English councils are at risk of going bust, according to the National Audit Office, and councils are increasingly moving to “bare minimum” levels of service.

On Wednesday the Northampton South Tory MP, Andrew Lewer, said ministers needed to urgently “learn the lessons” from the financial collapse of Northamptonshire county council if they were to prevent more councils slipping into insolvency.

The details of the cuts faced by Northamptonshire are likely to emerge over the next few weeks, with the “radical” reductions expected across all areas, from social care to roads maintenance. It is likely there will be large-scale redundancies among the council’s 3,400 staff.

In children’s services, where spending has been particularly high, the council is likely to find ways of controlling the surge in the numbers of children being taken into care or subject to a child protection plan in recent years.



Adult social care will also come under scrutiny, and it is likely the council will look to raise or introduce fees and charges for services. Support for people with learning disabilities will also come under scrutiny.

Eligibility thresholds for free home-to-school transport for young people are likely come under review, although any restrictions could prove unpopular in a largely rural county, and could be subjected to judicial review.

There will be pressure on the council to go ahead with its plan to close or sell off 21 out of its 36 libraries, although this is currently subject to legal challenge. The council will look also at reducing road repair and winter gritting services.

Northamptonshire will attempt to renegotiate contracts with private suppliers, including a number of private finance initiative agreements. It will attempt to sell off more council-owned buildings.

Labour abstained from an earlier council vote to accept a section 114 report from the council’s finance director, which warned that huge cuts were needed to balance the books. Labour said it would not vote to “harm the people of Northamptonshire”.

The council is technically insolvent, having received two section 114 letters – effectively saying the council cannot meet its financial obligations – in the past six months. There have been only two other such notices in the whole of England since 1988.



The latest section 114 notice, issued in July by the finance director, Mark McLaughlin, criticised the council’s leadership over the past four years, saying it had taken poor decisions and failed to tackle the growing black hole in its finances.

It said the council had inappropriately used reserves and cash from the sale of buildings to fix day-to-day revenue problems, and had adopted savings plans it knew were unachievable on the assumption it would be bailed out by government.

Meeting the challenge of balancing the budget would “require a depth of insight, perspective and leadership” that had not been apparent in the council’s previous budget deliberations, the letter said.