A STARK picture of cuts to the public purse which may have to be made next year has been revealed as one Oxfordshire council has started discussing its 2021 budget.

Cherwell District Council has estimated it will need to make £9.5m worth of cuts to spending over the next few years.

This is on top of £2.4m cuts it made to its 2020/21 budget in the middle of the financial year, because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on public spending.

The council is the first in Oxfordshire to begin discussing next year’s budget, which will be finalised in February next year, after the predicted difficult winter with Covid still circulating.

But it might not be the only one in a difficult position come next year.

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Oxford City Council and the other districts have yet to start their budget setting process, but have all previously said they are facing difficult financial situations due to the pandemic.

Over the last 10 years, cuts to public spending have resulted in the loss of local services across the UK like youth centres, libraries, and a bottleneck in cheap rental housing being built.

Cherwell’s budget planning committee met on Tuesday (September 29) to look over the 2021/22 budget plans.

Ahead of the meeting, it's cabinet member for finance, Tony Ilott, said the £9.5m cuts were a worst-case scenario for the 'challenging’ situation' facing the UK, and could be reduced if Central Government gave extra money to Cherwell.

Mr Ilot said: “We are setting a savings target of £9.5m in the expectation that this figure will be significantly reduced once we receive news from central Government as we move towards setting a final budget for 2021/22 in February.

“However, we must plan responsibly for every kind of scenario and that is why we are letting residents know at this early stage that challenges may lie ahead."

The council was already reporting it wanted to make £7.7m of cuts to next year’s budget before Covid hit, but council officials forecast this had risen to £9.5m because of the pandemic.

During the budget planning meeting, councillors were told this extra expenditure could be spread out over two years, instead of one.

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Bicester town centre: Cherwell District Council looks after services in Bicester, Banbury, Kidlington and other areas of northern Oxfordshire. Picture: Ed Nix

Cherwell, and other councils like it across Oxfordshire and the rest of England, are also facing uncertainty because the Government might be changing the amount of money it creams off the top of business rates.

In Cherwell, businesses have thrived in recent years, meaning there has been a very healthy return on tax from them, but the review of business rates might change this.

Councils are also awaiting a review of how much different Government departments would be given to spend each year, which may give a ‘steer’ on how much money councils are given.

On top of this, a scheme called the New Homes Bonus, under which councils were given cash by Government for building houses, is due to wind up soon.

Oxfordshire County Council is due to begin discussing its budget later in the year, as is Oxford City Council.

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Throughout the pandemic, both of these councils have lobbied the Government to help them make up shortfalls in their current budgets, having spent extra cash and lost income during the last six months.

A city council spokesman said it was seeking to set a balanced budget for next year, which it has to do by law.

And the other districts in Oxfordshire: West Oxfordshire, South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse, have all said they are similarly struggling, but are not yet starting their budget preparations.

Though Cherwell is playing a ‘wait-and-see’ game, its preparations to make swingeing cuts have already drawn criticism from opposition leaders.

Sean Woodcock, the leader of Cherwell’s Labour opposition group said: "It has been patently obvious for months that local services are staring at an abyss. For ten years, councils have been reliant on housebuilding or investment in corporate enterprise to make up for a lack of government finance. The pandemic has left these institutions utterly exposed.

"Tory councillors on Cherwell know this. Some have even said so publicly. But without a commitment from ministers in Westminster to properly fund local authorities for the foreseeable future, this announcement I fear is just the beginning."

And the council’s lone Green Party councillor Ian Middleton, said the council should have already planned for a future without the ‘excessive growth’ of businesses and rates.

He added: “Whatever the outcome of the budget discussions I will be pushing to ensure that we maintain frontline services, but that this should not be at the cost of our promises to tackle climate change. Already we've seen changes in the 2020/21 budget that cancelled a key project to reduce electricity consumption in Bodicote House by upgrading the lighting to LED.”