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On Wednesday the government announced an extra £500m nationally for social care with an expectation that councils would use this money to fund children’s social care and home to school transport services. The exact figure that North Somerset will receive is not yet known, but is estimated to be about £1.7m.
Cllr Mike Bell, Leader of the Council said: “We won’t ever look a gift horse in the mouth, and of course we welcome any additional funding to ease our budget pressures, but the sad reality is that this contribution will result in very little impact on the challenges we face.
“Next month we will discuss the progress being made in our medium term financial plan and measures to set a balanced budget for the year ahead. I cannot stress strongly enough that these are incredibly challenging times, and without a much more significant injection of additional funding, difficult decisions about what we can and cannot do in the future will need to be made.
“Wherever we do make savings, our priority will be to implement them in ways which take us further towards our goals of ensuring an open, fair and green North Somerset, as our communities have told us that is what’s important to them.
“We are also committed to engaging further with local people and getting their views about how we achieve the savings we need to make. While the decisions we make will all be difficult ones, and some may not be universally popular, we want to make them in ways that respect our communities’ views.”