Bristol City Council leader warns of “financial black hole”

Cross-party leaders delivered bleak messages about Bristol City Council’s financial future and likely cuts to services following the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Budget. A speech by Green Cllr Tony Dyer, marking six months as the local authority’s leader and responding to the new government’s spending plans announced by Labour’s Rachel Reeves, highlighted the need to put trust back into politics and for councillors to work together for residents.

But he said the amount of money from Westminster for the council in 2025/26, to be announced around Christmas, would fall short of what was needed to balance its books. Cllr Dyer told full council on Tuesday, November 12: “Though I believe that it will be more than the mouldy old satsuma local government has become accustomed to in recent years, we do already know that it won’t be enough to cover the financial blackhole we’re facing.

“We still have to balance our budget – if we do not then our ability to do so will be taken out of our hands and anything that is not a statutory requirement will be at risk. To do this, firstly we must tackle our in-year deficits, not only in the general fund where we still have a gap of almost £20million due to the failure of previous administrations to deliver in-year savings, but also in our [housing and schools budgets].

“Therefore, strict internal spending controls will remain in place, and we continue to closely monitor delivery of savings, key projects and the transformation programme. This is vital to ensure we are in the right position as a council to not only tackle the fiscal challenges that have been identified, but to ensure that we can deliver vital services effectively to the standards people need.”

Opposition Labour group leader Cllr Tom Renhard said local government was just one of the areas left “broke and broken” by the previous Tory government. He said: “Fixing this mess will take time, but at long last we have a government that understands and will address the situation that councils are in.

“Already we’ve seen increased funding for adult social care, SEND, social housing and tackling homelessness this winter. Restoring faith in politics means being honest with the public, not pretending there are magical fiscal wands we can wave to conjure up more cash, given the £22billion hole left in the national finances by the previous government.

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“And at some point the Greens are going to need to start taking responsibility rather than looking to blame everyone else.” Lib Dem group leader Cllr Jos Clark said: “I agree that public trust in politics is not in a good shape.

“This has to change as it looks like things are not going to get any easier in the near future, with the council facing massive budgetary challenges. So even if it is difficult to hear, the council has to keep our residents informed about how tricky the situation really is and to continue to listen to the views of our residents.

“It has become clear that the government’s settlement is going to leave us with some really tough decisions, and this has not been helped by the state of the council’s current finances.” Cllr Clark said she was “frankly stunned” by the service delivery and financial “mess” that the authority’s housing and adult social care departments were in.

Conservative group leader Cllr Mark Weston said: “Despite Cllr Renhard’s attempt to put lipstick on a pig, the reality remains that the Budget remains one ugly swine. I’m finding it very hard to reconcile the rhetoric pre-general election to the reality of what they’re doing in the Budget because this Budget is going to be bad for the country and bad for our city.

“It hammers our pensioners, it wounds our charities, it cripples businesses and on a national level it’s going to destroy our farmers. But we’re here today to talk about how it’s going to impact the council – it’s going to be bad.

“We are going to face some very tough choices about how this Budget is going to impact key partners across this city.” He said increases in national insurance contributions would trickle down to Bristol charities that tackle homelessness.

Cllr Weston said: “They are going to have to cut services to meet that. That is going to hurt us.

“The companies that do our work, this will hit them as well. The impact on [council-owned company Bristol Waste] for what’s coming now is £800,000.

“Even if there is an exemption granted to local government, and that’s a big if, arms-length companies are almost certainly not going to be exempt from that. This is not a good Budget for us at all. We’re going to have to face up to some stark realities.”