On 5 November Bradford Council’s Executive committee will discuss the latest savings proposals that are being brought forward as part of the plan to return the council to financial sustainability.
The 47 savings proposals detailed in the report to the committee add up to a potential saving of £33.84M for the council’s budget for the financial year 2025-26.
The council has developed a continuous rolling programme of identifying efficiencies and savings which will be brought to Executive for approval throughout the year.
The council has a five-year plan to become financially sustainable. It requires the council to deliver around £40M of additional savings and increased income each year over that period.
The council expects to achieve its £40M savings target for 2025-26 when further proposals are brought to the December meeting of Executive.
Many of proposed savings to be discussed next week come from increasing efficiency, reducing demand, or increasing income rather than from cuts to services.
The proposals include:
- £1.6M saving by transforming customer services and contact management by using voice automation, robotic process automation and other digital technology
- £400,000 income by increasing garden waste charges in 2025/26
- £138,000 savings on street lighting costs by further reducing and dimming LED streetlights
- £580,000 from tackling dangerous driving by introducing additional enforcement sites to ease congestion and reduce accidents on highways
- Implementing the new H-FAST service to get people home from hospital sooner with lower social care requirements.
Savings need to be found to meet unprecedented levels of financial challenge for the council, as set out in the Medium Term Financial Strategy in July 2024.
The council continues to work closely with the Bradford Children Families Trust to help support and reduce the rising on-going cost of children’s social care. The Trust has identified £16.2M savings proposals and a has further £600,000 in development to safely reduce cost and improve outcomes for children. The quarter 2 report shows that spend on children’s social care is now reducing and the proposals will accelerate this trend.
The quarter 2 monitoring report highlights that the council is making good progress towards delivering the £48.6m savings agreed in March, in line with the five year improvement plan.
The council’s 2023/24 budget was overspent by £80m, requiring an in principle capitalisation direction from Government. Along with the use of reserves in 2023/24, this led to a structural budget gap of £120m. For 2024/25, there is an estimated budget deficit of £140m. The council has agreement in principle for a further capitalisation direction to address this.
Public consultation and engagement on the latest proposals, if agreed, will take place after the meeting on 5 November.
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe, Leader of Bradford Council, said: “We have to make significant savings and are doing all we can to achieve them through efficiencies, innovation, finding better ways of working and maximising our income rather than service reductions. However, we will inevitably still have some very tough decisions to make.
“We’re working hard to ensure a stable financial future for Bradford Council and we are being clear with residents about what we will have to do to achieve this.
“Bringing these savings proposals forward now means we have time to have meaningful consultation with residents ahead of the overall budget setting in February next year.”
