In October 2024, we reported how the wellbeing of children and young people was at risk from cuts to local services, according to a warning from the Children’s Commissioner.
Our analysis showed local authorities were making £3bn in savings that financial year, but still faced a funding shortfall of more than £5.7bn by 2026-27.
Local government experts said councils had carried out "all of the easy cuts" years ago and were now struggling to protect vital children's and adult social care services.
Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza (pictured above) said: "Children must not pay the price for balancing budgets."
Local government minister Jim McMahon said the new government had inherited a crisis and there was "no shying away" from the scale of it.
Our investigation concentrated on the upper-tier authorities in England and Wales, as well as the single-tier councils in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Between August and September 2024, we approached those 218 councils, asking for details contained in each authority’s ratified budget for 2024-25 and their medium-term financial strategies.
We asked the councils to provide:
- The total net revenue budget requirement for 2024-25.
- Details of the total amount of planned savings for 2024-25 and how those savings will be achieved.
- Whether the council has approved the use of general or earmarked reserves to balance the 2024-25 budget, and the net use of both.
- Details of whether the council had held or intends to hold an emergency financial budget.
- The council’s predicted cumulative shortfall for the 2026-27 financial year.
In some cases the council supplied the agenda papers for the authority’s budget. In those cases we filled in the accompanying sheet manually and sent our findings back to the corresponding council for verification.
Regarding the two-year shortfall recorded in the dataset - this was a cumulative shortfall. So if the council predicted it would need to find £2m in 2025-26 and £3m in 2026-27, we recorded this as a £5m cumulative deficit.
If a council sent us a range of predictions for its two-year shortfall we recorded the worst-case scenario in the dataset and put the best-case scenario in the notes section for context.
In some cases, councils did not answer a particular question. In that case we entered DNA (‘Did Not Answer’) into the dataset. If we entered their details manually and they did not confirm our findings, we entered DNC (‘Did Not Confirm’). Where a question was not applicable to that particular authority, we entered NA (not applicable).
Population figures corresponded to data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) (‘Dataset Estimates of the population for the UK, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland’, Dec 2022). This excluded Westmorland as well Furness and Cumberland, both created in April 2023. These local authorities’ population figures were obtained from their respective websites.
- The net budget requirement for the councils who responded totalled £70.28bn, i.e. the amount they would need to spend to fund the services they offered for 2024-25
- To try and meet that cost, councils approved at least £3.04bn in savings for 2024-25
- And they dipped into their reserves, approving the drawing down of £1.08bn, including £816m in earmarked funding and £266.79 from general reserves
- By 2026-27, the cumulative shortfall facing those councils would stand at £5.73bn, according to local authority estimations – when we asked the same question in the previous year, councils had predicted a £5.29bn shortfall for 2025-26.
- Of the 143 councils that responded to the same questions in 2024 and the previous year, the two-year cumulative shortfall figure was greater for 89 of them (while it fell for 58)
We produced this story pack and this dataset.
- Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza
- Local Government Information Unit Chief Executive, Dr Jonathan Carr-West
- Local Government Association Chair, Councillor Louise Gittins
- Lynn Perry, Chief Executive of Barnardo’s
- UNISON head of local government, Mike Short
- Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT
- Mikey Erhardt, Campaigner at Disability Rights UK
- Councillor Andrew Morgan OBE, Leader of the Welsh Local Government Association
- Local Government Minister Jim McMahon
- Leader of Shropshire Council, Lezley Picton
Statements
- Bradford Council and Bradford Children and Families Trust
- Newham Council
- Carmarthenshire Council
The Shared Data Unit makes data journalism available to the wider news industry as part of the BBC Local News Partnership.
This story was covered by BBC platforms online, in TV and on radio.
National BBC stations that had the story in their running orders across radio or TV included: The 6 'O Clock News; News at Ten; Politics Live; Radio 1; Radio 2; Radio 3; Radio 4 and 5Live.
The story was also used by local BBC TV and radio stations including BBC London, Tees, Cumbria, Leicester, Sheffield, Shropshire, Wiltshire, Stoke, LookEast, LookNorth and Wales Today.
Online coverage included several BBC articles featuring localised takes on our national version of the story, which was used on the BBC's front page. Examples include:
- BBC Dorset
- BBC London
- BBC Suffolk
- BBC Kent
- BBC Bedfordshire
- BBC Essex
- BBC Surrey
- BBC Wales
- BBC Hampshire
- BBC Shropshire
- BBC West Northamptonshire
- BBC Norfolk
- BBC Peterborough
- BBC Hertfordshire
- BBC Cambridgeshire
- BBC Cornwall
- BBC East Sussex
- BBC Surrey
Stories written by external partners based on this research included:
- Liverpool Echo: Massive council budget black hole
- Chronicle Live: Fears of lifetime cost for children as North East councils face £196m black hole
- Darlington and Stockton Times: Children at risk from council funding crisis
- Hexham Courant: North east councils looking at spending cuts amid funding crisis
- Cambridgeshire Live: Cambridgeshire councils face £56m blackhole in budget
- Kent Online: Kent County Council faces £55m increase in savings - or going bust
- Bedford Independent: Record council rises on way to bridge budget gaps
- Shropshire Star: Shropshire Council cuts among the worst in the country as finances sit on a knife edge
- Sunderland Echo: North east authorities face £200m of public funds cuts
- Worcester News: Fears over impact of budget cuts on children
- Border Counties Advertizer: Shropshire Council making the highest savings in England
- Wakefield Express: Opposition accuse Labour leadership of financial incompetence over budget black hole
- Evesham Journal: Fears over impact of budget cuts on children
- Isle of Wight Observer: Council leader admits to forecasted budget overspend of £5.7m
- Doncaster Free Press: Doncaster among councils forced to make savings in children's services amidst funding crisis
- Kentish Gazette: Council faces £55m hike in savings to avoid going bust
Stories written by external outlets based on this research included: