The word ‘unprecedented’ has been used a lot over the last three years, particularly when describing the events and after effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, next week, I am sure it will be a word associated with the extraordinary budget pressures facing the council over the next financial year.

I have been leader of this council for well over a decade and in that time there has not been a year that has gone by where we have not had to make savings.

The problem is two-fold. The proportion of the budget that is spent on adults and children who require our support has risen year on year, while we have also seen a steady fall in the amount of funding we receive from central government.

Next year, for example, around 80 per cent of our budget will be spent on meeting our statutory duty to provide essential social care services to support adults and children. That equates to just over £124m.

The biggest financial saving we’ve had to make in a single year was in 2019-20 when we faced a budget shortfall £21.6 million.

For the next financial year, we are facing a gap of £38.6m, which is a staggering amount of money we have to find. We are not alone.

Councils across the country are facing similar budget shortfalls, caused primarily by soaring inflation, which has hugely increased the costs of our major contracts and the services we commission.

When you add the demand pressure on our services and factor in that income levels for most councils have not returned to pre-pandemic levels, plus the increases in the National Living Wage, we find ourselves in the perfect storm.

In the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement it was confirmed that councils do have the option of increasing council tax by up to five per cent, but each one per cent increase in council tax would raise about £1.2m, which is obviously not going to bridge the enormous financial chasm we all currently face.

Our officers continue to work on a financial stability plan in an effort to close the budget gap and a range of proposals will be brought before my Cabinet colleagues and I at our meeting in February.

I have written to the Prime Minister highlighting the financial crisis facing local authorities across the country and adding my support to Kent, Hampshire and Herefordshire councils who have called for more financial support.

We want to see annual increases in funding that match the growth in demand for adults and children’s services, full funding of the Social Care Funding Reforms and Special Educational Needs growth, and freedoms and flexibilities around council tax setting and charging for services.

We also want to see legislative change to enable councils to do more to help themselves.

I have offered to meet with the Prime Minister and other council leaders to help deliver a long-term strategy to deliver critical local services and growth more effectively.

In the meantime, we will be working as hard as we can to deliver a balanced budget over the next two months.