BCP Council budget crisis: £38m gap and cuts ‘highly likely’

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council has warned that cuts to services are “highly likely” as it forecasts a £38m gap in its budget for 2027/28. Separately, the council faces pressures of more than £32m this year if no action is taken, according to BBC News.

The warning affects residents across all three towns who rely on the council for adult and children’s social care, parking, seafront services and more. The council says it will probably need to ask government for exceptional financial support.

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council’s £38m budget gap in figures

The council said the pressures are driven by rising demand for children’s and adults’ social care and the rising cost of delivering services. It also expects government funding to fall by £15m in real terms by 2028/29. Matthew Filmer, the council’s interim director of finance, said: “If people come into care, we have to look after them, it’s our statutory obligation to do so.”

The Bournemouth Echo reported that the forecast overspend for this year was £27m after the first quarter, as reported in August, and had grown to £32m by September. That is a rise of £5m, or about 19% on the earlier figure by our calculation. The Echo said the council attributes the increase to more children being taken into care.

Council tax rises and service cuts: what is on the table

Mike Cox, the council’s cabinet member for finance, said the council was dealing with a challenge “on a scale it has not experienced before”. He stressed that no decisions had been made on cutting services but said that was “highly likely” given the scale of the problem.

Asked by the Echo whether council tax would rise above 4.99%, Cox said: “I think it’s likely that we will be asking for exceptional financial support, which might include that.” No increase has been confirmed.

Cox said the council had planned to cover its special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) debt by selling property, but would probably also need to sell assets to balance next year’s budget. “We haven’t got that many assets to sell. So we’re at the moment between a rock and a hard place,” he told the Echo. Chief executive Aidan Dunn said directors meet weekly in a “situation room”, where they scrutinise contracts, halt non-essential spending and enforce a recruitment freeze.

What happens next, and what government has said

Earlier this week the government approved the council’s plan to reform its SEND services, making it eligible for a grant covering 90% of its historic deficit. The council expects to be left with a SEND debt of about £38m by March 2028, after which government will take over the spending. This is a separate figure from the 2027/28 budget gap. The council is urging ministers to cover the final 10%. “This is a statutory service that government has underfunded for years,” Cox said.

A Department for Education spokesperson said the High Needs Stability Grant was the largest ever government intervention on council SEND deficits, worth more than £5bn nationally. A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said over £458m was available for BCP Council this year to help deliver public services.

The next dates are Tuesday 13 October, when councillors debate the quarter one budget monitoring report at full council, and November, when the quarter two report is expected. Cox said that if the council would not make the decisions needed to balance the budget, Filmer would have to issue a section 114 notice and commissioners would come in. “We’re going to try and avoid that like the plague,” he said.

Your questions answered

Which councils are in financial trouble?

The sources do not name other authorities. Cox said he had been told more than 100 councils were in a similar position to BCP, though that figure is his account rather than a published count. BCP’s own pressures come mainly from social care demand, rising delivery costs and SEND debt.

A section 114 notice is the formal step a council’s finance officer takes when it cannot balance its budget. As Cox described it, commissioners could then step in and make the cuts. BCP has not issued one, and the council says it wants to avoid doing so. Residents wanting to follow the detail can watch the 13 October full council meeting and the quarter two report due in November.