Nottingham City Council underspend to help with cost of living

Nottingham City Council is to provide more support with the cost of living after spending millions of pounds less than expected, the authority's deputy leader has said.

It was announced earlier this summer that the Labour-run council had underspent by more than £20m in the 2025-26 financial year.

Ethan Radford said details were still being finalised but the council would shortly announce a series of one-off measures "designed to alleviate pressure on individuals and businesses."

"Many of these policies will be things that we're piloting for one year, two years, to see what impact it has," he said.

"What it should be viewed as is a recovery package for parts of the city where it doesn't need year-on-year investment, but it needs an immediate injection of funding so it can get off the ground and have an immediate improvement."

He added that some of the money will also go towards fixing more potholes and further cleansing in the city centre.

"Getting rid of chewing gum, getting rid of grotty looking bins, getting rid of graffiti, the things that are unsightly that none of us want to see," he said.

It will not, however, be used to offset any potential future increase to council tax.

"At this time, we think it's better value for the taxpayer to take that £20m underspend and invest it into the services that they want to see improvement in," Radford said.

The council effectively declared itself bankrupt in 2023 but has recently shown signs of recovery.

Commissioners appointed to help run the authority in 2024 left earlier this year and were replaced with "ministerial envoys", who have fewer powers.

Radford said an underspend was "quite rare" but was evidence of the council's improving financial position.

Kirsty L Jones, leader of the Nottingham People's Alliance , however, said it may have come as a result of "under-delivery of services in the first place".

"I think when they've cut so deeply previously, it's not going to cause any sort of recovery in the services people expect, paying higher council tax for fewer services as they've seen throughout the years," she said.

"Helping with the cost of living - I don't know how they can meaningfully do that with £20m and expect to spend it on other things too."

The use of the underspend funds will be discussed at a meeting of the council's executive board on Tuesday.

It will then require approval from full council because it constitutes a change to the authority's annual budget.

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