Shropshire Council finished the latest financial year £34 million over budget, end of year figures for the council show.
The council made just over £47 million in savings in the year. As proportion of the council’s net budget, at around 18%, this one of the highest figures of any English council.
At its meeting in February (2025) plans were agreed to continue to reduce its spending by £19 million this year plus savings not achieved last year to close the budget gap by over £60 million.
The final budget position mirrors the forecast the authority had made this spring. and the overspend continues in part to be driven by ever rising costs of children’s and adult social care.
A report to the council’s Transformation and Improvement Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Cabinet, highlights examples including an increase in rising costs in the residential care market for adults and children, growing numbers of children with education, care and health plans who need transport to special education.
Services under the former Place directorate also recorded a significant overspend.
The report warns that the council’s financial position has only been made possible by using reserves, money it keeps for emergency situations including some earmarked for other uses, to balance the budget.
The council’s General Fund Balance ended the year under £5 million, below the level considered appropriate for a council of Shropshire’s size. In the new financial year efforts will be made to increase the level of reserves with the ultimate aim of increasing them to a minimum level of £15 million.
Councillor Roger Evans, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for finance, said:
“The year end position further underlines the near impossible situation the council faces. We already know almost £4 in every £5 we spend goes on protecting the most vulnerable in our county – children and adults who we must by law provide social care for.
“Despite our hard-working officers making record levels of savings last year, proportionately more than any other council, this pressure will only continue and with an ever-ageing population requiring more care, the situation will not improve.
“We are re-examining the budget and are working on plans to achieve the savings we must make to bring the budget back into balance and replenish reserves to a minimum safe level. To do this requires more tough decisions and likely some reductions in service or people needing to pay more for some other services.
“To do this we are also pushing the Government to change how it funds social care and to stop penalising large sparsely populated counties like Shropshire, as this year’s settlement did, where it costs more to run many services.”
