There are fresh fears that Cumbria County Council may have to shoulder more of the burden and face further cuts.

The comments came in the wake of the Chancellor’s Comprehensive Spending Review on Wednesday.

Senior councillors have particular concerns about the future funding of schools and adult social care.

The council’s leaders say that local authorities will be among the losers because their services have not been given protection by the Government this week in the same way police budgets have.

Cumbria County Council must now wait to discover if it has to find further savings in addition to the £37 million of cuts it already has to make in 2016/17.


Patricia Bell Speaking as senior councillors met in Carlisle, deputy leader Patricia Bell said: “The extent of the protection towards other services, such as the police is greater than we expected.

“This means that those services that are not protected, like ourselves, will end up shouldering more of the burden of reductions in government spending.”

She added: “These are uncertain times and the devil will be in the detail. What is unchanged is that we need to save £37m for the year 2016/17.

“The consultation which cabinet agreed at its October meeting set out that as £19.5m of which has already been agreed in previous budget, we will need to make a further £17.5m savings next year.

“The draft funding settlement for local government isn’t due until the middle of December. It is only then will we know exactly what savings we need to make next year.”

Cumbria County Council has already agreed cuts of £153m over the last five years and predicts a further £80m will have to be found over the next three.

Yesterday concerns were also raised about the Government’s move to abolish the education services grant, which would save £600m nationally, and the introduction of a new national funding formula for schools in 2017.

The education services grant is given to councils to provide services such as admissions and educational welfare. 

Council leader Stewart Young said: “The education services grant is given to councils to pay for things like speech therapists, education psychologists, and that is being removed altogether. I think that’s about £5m for Cumbria.

“The objective is for all schools to become academies and until that happens there are schools that choose to remain in the local authority family and they do rely on those [council] services to support them and their children.

“To cut that money before we have an alternative in place seems to be irresponsible.”

He fears that small schools could be hit by changes to the national funding formula for schools which are due to be introduced in 2017.

There are also concerns that the council’s funding to help support improvements in local schools could also be hit if the education support grant is axed.

Meanwhile, in relation to future funding for adult social care, Mrs Bell said: “The Chancellor’s statement suggested there may be an increase to the Better Care Fund to reflect increased adult social care pressures and the pressure upon social care providers linked to the national living wage announcement by the Chancellor in June, however, we need to understand what this means for Cumbria.

“Indeed, before the Chancellor spoke the council had already began consulting on a two per cent increase in council tax for next year to help pay for the essential services the people of Cumbria need.

“So, the proposed two per cent council tax precept for social care, as a county with one of the lowest council tax bases in the country and one of the fastest super-aging populations is not a solution.”