Borough said to be “fourth most underfunded in England” based on relative need as £30m budget gap looms for 2025/26, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

Finance chiefs at Enfield Council have painted a bleak picture for the years to come as they look to plug a £30million funding shortfall for 2025/26.

In the latest civic centre finance report, a £30.3m gap is projected for the next financial year, with a £86m gap for the years between 2025 and 2029.

However, the forecasts do not account for any potential rises in council tax or government funding, which are yet to be confirmed for future years. The report describes Enfield’s current level of funding as “unequitable”.

For the current financial year, the council is projecting a £9.4m overspend, which needs to be reduced before the end of March or otherwise met from reserves.

At an overview and scrutiny committee last night (Wednesday 20th) Neil Goddard, Enfield’s head of financial strategy, discussed the “main pressure areas” causing the £9.4m overspend.

He said: “You’ve got the continued pressures within our temporary accommodation [TA] and homelessness services, increasing demand for TA and the problems supplying it.

“Our external care placements in our children and families services continues to cause us problems and the housing benefit subsidy loss was a pressure that emerged at the end of last year.”

The report lists the work the council is doing to attempt to reduce the figure, including setting up overspend and spend control panels, having action plans around the housing benefit subsidy loss and temporary accommodation, and demand management plans for adult social care.

Neil added: “Enfield is not alone, across London the average gross overspend [on TA] is about £18.8m which mirrored our quarter one position.”

The borough has improved its in-year position since quarter one but the report says it “remains challenging”.

Regarding the level of government funding the borough receives compared with other local authorities, Neil said: “We were the fourth most underfunded authority in England and that was based on relative need to relative funding.

“Despite that, over the years we have a track record of balancing the budget and we’re striving to continue to do so.”

Addressing the concerning figures, committee chair Nicki Adeleke asked what work was being “specifically done in Enfield” to lobby central government for more funding.

Ian Davis, the council’s chief executive, said Enfield along with other London councils had lobbied the government around the issues with housing and TA, a fairer funding formula for outer London boroughs, and adults and children’s services.

Conservative councillor Maria Alexandrou asked about the worsening situation with temporary accommodation, saying the council needed to be “bolder”.

She said: “I think there’s still around 3,000 empty homes in the borough. I know the council has a plan to bring so many back into use, I think around 60 a year, but is there a way to push that so we can have a lot more?

“There’s no point having empty houses when there’s people that need houses, I’m wondering what we can do to work with landlords?”

Ian said: “In terms of how we’re managing our position I think we’re doing fairly well to manage that. Only about 17% of the people approaching us actually take up provision with us finding them a property, the rest of them we deal with by doing upstream work, so we will seek to try and stop them being evicted in the first place.”

Work to find “additional stock” was being undertaken, as well as to secure grants.

Ian said: “We’re buying street-based stock up via the housing revenue account [HRA]. We’ve got Housing Gateway [a council-owned company setup to reduce TA pressures] but the way finances work at the moment it’s better value for us to buy properties through the HRA.”

He added that the government’s move to double council tax on second homes, which comes into effect in April, acted as a potential incentive for people to come forward. The council is also looking to work with existing landlords to “secure them” in “longer term agreements with longer leases”.

Conservative councillors Michael Rye and James Hockney asked about the strength of the council’s reserves position.

Jo Moore, the executive director of resources said: “In terms of the level reserves, most councils have reduced their reserves significantly.”

She added that in January she would have to “take a view” on the reserve’s adequacy but added they weren’t currently at a “critical level”.

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