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The announcement does not provide enough funding to meet the increasing cost pressures the council is facing, particularly in caring for the most vulnerable children and older people in the local community.
Cllr Mike Bell, Leader of the Council, said: “We’d hoped that government would recognise the immense pressure being felt across local government and provide some much-needed support. They have failed to do so and their lack of funding is forcing difficult decisions in North Somerset.
“Our settlement figure is the lowest of any unitary authority in the south west. Excluding council tax, our government funding per household for next year will be £729 compared to an English average of £1,101. This is the equivalent to around £37 million less in government funding for North Somerset compared to the English average.
“All councils are in a challenging position, but North Somerset is locked into a cycle of historic underfunding that is leaving us further and further behind.”
The council has been working on a series of measures to enable it to continue supporting vulnerable people and other vital services by examining expenditure across all its service areas. But it still needs to identify £3.2m of savings to set a balanced budget next year, on top of the £11.6m already identified.
Cllr Bell added: “These are incredibly challenging times. We are looking at everything, and it’s inevitable that the services our communities rely on every day are now exposed to further cuts.
“We’re exploring introducing new car parking charges in all our towns, reducing the frequency of our black bin collections - as other councils have done successfully – and raising all our fees and charges in line with inflation.
“We will do all we can to continue to manage our budgets effectively and efficiently and to avoid the desperate measures that other councils are facing, with the Local Government Association predicting that one in five councils will in effect be bankrupt within the next year.”
The council will consider detailed budget proposals at a meeting of its Executive on Wednesday 7 February 2024. The final budget and council tax levels for the year ahead is expected to be agreed at a meeting of the Full Council on Tuesday 20 February.