County council faces funding shortfall of £98m

The leader of Worcestershire County Council has said the authority "is almost certainly" not going to increase council tax by more than 5% next year despite a funding shortfall now estimated to be £98m.

Matt Jenkins, who also fronts the county's Green Party, drew the line at 5% in May, but during an interview with BBC Hereford & Worcester on Monday he addmitted council finances were in "a deep hole".

Asked whether his position on tax was unchanged, he stated: "I'm a politician, you make promises and it's always very dangerous but we really do not want to increase council tax above 5%."

He said: "We definitely don't want to do that. We're almost certainly not going to do that."

Jenkins said the authority would be looking to bring in cost saving methods, such as AI to improve efficiency but said further steps were needed, with "tough decisions" on the horizon.

The council is led as a minority administration under a coalition of Greens, Lib Dems and independents which stated its tax intentions in its first cabinet meeting.

The previous minority administration, led by Reform UK, chose to increase council tax by 9% for the 2025-26 financial year.

During its time in charge, the Reform adminstration requested about £60m in Exceptional Financial Support to help fill a funding gap.

That coupled with the council taxi rise, helped fill a hole of about £74m, but Jenkins said the council could be forced to apply for extra funding again with an even bigger gap to fill.

"I don't think people realise quite how deep a hole we are in financially," he said, adding: "The predicted gap for this year is £98m.

"Costs are going up, [there's] inflation and we have a lot of issues with the children's and adult's [services].

"They're the big ones that are just eating up 75 to 80% of our funds and unless government gives loads of councils {more money] - because it's not just us, loads of councils are in a similar position with adult and children services - ... then we will have to take that extra support again, definitely, we will need that.

"We can't fill that hole with cuts alone and we're getting to that point where we're looking at tough decisions."

Analysis by Tom Edwards - BBC Hereford & Worcester political reporter

The remarks from Jenkins about the council's financial situation come just weeks after independent regulators raised dire warnings about a budget black hole, warning that the authority was under "severe and escalating" pressure".

But the state of play appears to be even worse now - the budget deficit for 2027/28 was forecast at £84m back in early summer, but is now about £98m.

The authority would have been effectively bankrupt were it not for central government stumping up £60m in emergency support for this financial year.

Now the council's leadership is preparing to ask ministers for another helping hand, alongside a major 'transformation programme' which will also certainly lead to job losses and much greater reliance on AI.

If that was not troubling enough, the council's long-term position is in limbo given the recent announcement that local government re-organisation is being paused.

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