Posted on Wednesday 18th June 2025

The council balanced its books for 2024/25
Staffordshire County Council has balanced its books for the last 12 months despite strong economic pressures.
The authority stuck to its £747 million budget for 2024/25 despite particular pressures from the rising costs of placements for vulnerable children and greater difficulty in recruiting staff for adult social care.
And it saved 5.3 million against the budget which can be kept and used in future years.
Chris Large, Staffordshire County Council’s Cabinet member for Finance and Resources, said:
The Council’s financial team has a done a strong job of keeping a tight rein on budgets in comparison to other councils.
The surplus shows how difficult it is for councils to plan properly when Governments just follow one-year spending plans and create uncertainty for the following year.
The Government should automatically fix multi-year spending plans to allow long term planning and focus on investing in the council services that make a real difference to people’s lives, such as care for the elderly, highways and pupils with Special Educational Needs.”
The County Council’s budget for the current financial year is around £795 million.
Reform UK recently took control of Staffordshire County Council in the May election and pledged to examine closely how the authority spends its money.
Chris Large said:
The council is clearly able to control its spending within agreed budgets, but this administration wants to review how we allocate that expenditure in the first place.
A significant number of third-party contracts and services have existed for many years, and we need to make sure they are delivering for the people of Staffordshire.
We are determined to provide a value-for-money focus on delivering the core services that matter to residents.”
He added:
The biggest financial concern for any council such as ours, and it’s one that central Government keeps kicking down the road, is the debt that is building in a separate, ring-fenced budget for children with Special Educational Needs.
That currently stands at around £54 million because funding has consistently failed to meet rising demand, we are trying to bridge that gap as best we can, but ultimately this is a matter for Government.”