Yorkshire councils' government funding cut by £945m since 2015, figures show

City of York Council's government funding has halved in eight years

All but two Yorkshire councils are set to spend beyond their budgets this year as BBC analysis shows they have lost £945m in government funding since 2015.

The region's 13 major local authorities face a combined overspend of nearly £193m in 2023-24, with the spiralling cost of social care swallowing up one in every three pounds in their budgets.

Councils warned they had been "pushed to the brink" by funding cuts.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said public spending was "at record levels".

However, the BBC's analysis of figures compiled by the House of Commons Library found Yorkshire councils' combined funding from central government had fallen in real terms from £2.32bn in 2015-16 to £1.37bn in 2023-24.

The 13 authorities' combined spending on services has fallen by nearly £1.8bn over the same period, the data shows.

The councils have together cut more than 13,600 staff since 2010, according to figures provided to the BBC.

All have indicated they will have to rein in spending further to plug holes in their finances.

Leeds City Council, which faces a funding gap of £162.8m over the next four years, has said it is considering "every option no matter how unpalatable" to save money, including making the equivalent of 750 full-time employees redundant, selling off buildings and scrapping services.

Kirklees Council has frozen all non-essential spending to stave off effective bankruptcy, while the leaders of Barnsley Council and City of York Council have each warned they may have to make "difficult decisions" to balance the books.

'Peanuts'

All of the Yorkshire councils have lost at least a third of their central government funding since 2015-16, the last year for which comparable figures are available, the BBC's analysis found.

Sheffield City Council, whose chief executive last month described government investment in South Yorkshire as "peanuts," has lost more than £117m in funding over the last eight years.

Bradford Council, which has warned it could have to impose "drastic" cuts to cover a £68m budget shortfall this year, received £105m less in 2023-24 than in 2015-16.

The authority last month called on government ministers to "urgently" improve funding for local councils.

City of York Council, which receives one of the lowest funding settlements in the country, has seen its government money cut by more than half from £58.5m in 2015-16 to £28.3m this year.

Calderdale, East Riding of Yorkshire, Kirklees and Wakefield councils have all lost more than 40% of their government funding over the same period.

Graham Turner, cabinet member for finance at Kirklees Council, told the BBC the public sector had been "starved for cash".

He added: "We've had 13 years of cuts and we're now at the point where all local government, not just Kirklees, is really, really struggling.

"When everybody is in the same boat, it's clear there's a massive under-investment."

'Pushed to brink'

Only two Yorkshire councils - North Yorkshire and Hull - do not expect to spend more than they have budgeted for in 2023-24, according to figures published by the local authorities or provided to the BBC. However, both have said they will have to find millions to cover funding gaps in the coming years.

North Yorkshire Council, which was set up earlier this year in a merger of seven district authorities, has said it may spend the reserves of its predecessors to make £70m in savings over the next three years.

The leaders of the two main parties on Hull City Council this month jointly wrote to the government to appeal for more funding, warning the local authority would be unable to afford "vital services" from 2025 without more support.

The Local Government Association (LGA) said it was "hugely disappointed" Chancellor Jeremy Hunt did not announce funding for councils in his Autumn Statement last week.

It said local authorities had been "pushed to the brink" by the rising costs of child social care.

The BBC's analysis of council data found Yorkshire's local authorities spent 33% of their 2022-23 budgets on adult and children's social care, up from 25% eight years ago.

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council spent 42% of its budget last year on social care, up from 29% in 2015-16, while Hull City Council's spend rose from 25% to 38% in the same period.

In an interview with BBC Radio Leeds, Mr Sunak said his government had "announced record funding for the NHS and social care, because that was the number-one pressure that local councils were facing".

He added: "That is contributing to an increase in budgets for local councils. So, on average, they're going up by just under 10% this year - that's quite a significant increase."

The prime minister said the government was also "investing directly in local communities" through its Towns Fund and Levelling Up Fund.