Sandwell Council’s Cabinet received an updated Medium Term Financial Strategy at their meeting yesterday (Wednesday 16 October.)
Sandwell Council’s Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources Councillor Paul Moore said: “Each year, the council is legally required to set a balanced budget.
“In recent years this has become more difficult. Like all local authorities, we face significant financial pressure from the rising demand for our services, particularly for the support we provide vulnerable adults and children. At the same time, our costs are also going up due to inflation.
“Sandwell is not yet facing the extreme financial difficulties that some other local authorities are already dealing with. However, with the rising demand for our services we know that we must continue to manage our finances responsibly to avoid falling into these difficulties.”
As a result of inflation and the increase in demand for some essential services, a budget gap of £20million is forecast for 2025/26.
Cllr Moore added: “We have ambitious plans for Sandwell.
“We are committed to delivering high-quality services that are easy to use and that work for the people who need them.
“We want our borough to be a great place for children to grow up. We want to make Sandwell a cleaner, greener and safer place to live and for our residents to live longer in good health. And we want to create the good jobs and opportunities that will help everyone realise their potential.
“We will make decisions when setting our budget to set the council up to meet these ambitions. We can only do this if we continue to manage our finances responsibly and that does mean we will need to make some difficult decisions.
“We have developed proposals to reduce our spending on some things and increase our income in other areas, and its vital that we hear from residents on these proposals as we make decisions in the coming months to meet our legal duty to set a balanced budget for the next year.”
A budget consultation has now been launched to invite residents, businesses and voluntary organisations to have their say on the proposals under consideration.
Have your say by taking part in the consultation