Council gets emergency cash to 'bridge budget'
BBCA local authority will receive almost £18.5m in emergency funding from the government to help handle budget pressures that it "considered unmanageable".
Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council is one of 36 local authorities across England, and the only one in the North East, to receive the "exceptional financial support" for the next financial year.
The Labour-led council had previously said the money would be a "vital bridge" that enabled it to "manage short-term pressures while safeguarding essential services".
Redcar's Labour MP Anna Turley said: "This is what responsible leadership looks like - honest about the pressures and serious about rebuilding."
Recent analysis by accountancy firm Mazars, which audits Redcar and Cleveland Council's finances, said its financial sustainability represented a "significant weakness".
It described how repeated budget deficits, driven largely by overspending in children's services, had seen usable revenue reserves being eaten into to plug gaps, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Between the 2022-23 and 2024-25 financial year, these shrank from £42.7m to £17.1m.
Mazars said without arrangements in place to achieve financial sustainability, there was a risk that longer-term financial sustainability would be affected, and the council would be "unable to protect the delivery of core services".
The government said the £18.45m emergency funding, which had to be requested, was provided on an exceptional basis and was to help councils "handle pressures that they considered unmanageable and to enable them to set balanced budgets".
