Local Cost of Government’s ‘Reckless and Brutal’ in-year Cuts for Councils Estimated at £500,000

Recently announced government cuts to local authority budgets in the current financial year are set to strip £500,000 from Bedford Borough Council this year and every subsequent year. The Council's 2015/16 budget was consulted on extensively and was approved unanimously in a public vote in February. It included £10 million of savings, due in part to huge government cuts which have seen the council's main grant cut by a third in just two years.

However, the democratically approved budget will be cut further due to the announcement by George Osborne that £200 million will be taken back by the government from funding it had previously allocated for local authorities to spend on public health. Mayor Dave Hodgson has revealed that the Council estimates the cost for Bedford Borough to be around half a million pounds.

Commenting, he said: "Taking back money already granted for the Council and cutting its budget during the year is a reckless and brutal move by the government. Services are being provided now on the basis of the budget that was set. We don't even know exactly what the figure for the cut will be even now, but we estimate that it's likely to be around £500,000. What is certain is that it will put further pressure on already hugely depleted resources."

News of the extent of the in-year cuts faced by Bedford Borough Council comes in the week that the Government announced a further £37bn of spending cuts by 2020 in Chancellor George Osborne's post-election budget, which are set to include major additional cuts for councils