Cheshire East Council will be effectively bankrupt if the government doesn’t approve the use of exceptional financial support by the end of this financial year, the council’s head of finance said.
The council applied for £17.6m of EFS last February because of the projected overspend this financial year.
And in December it applied for up to £31.4m for 2025/26 and indicated a potential request of £23.7m for 2026/27.
Cheshire East is facing an £18.3m overspend at the end of this financial year, April 2025.
At the corporate policy committee on Thursday, Cllr Chris O’Leary (Sutton, Con) said: “In relation to the use of exceptional financial support for this year, obviously, the original application was not for the entirety of it in this year, and it’s only been agreed in principle.
“So do we have any indication from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government as to when they are going to give approval to use that EFS, and what happens if we don’t receive that approval before the end of this financial year?”
Adele Taylor (pictured), interim executive director of resources, said: “We don’t yet have a date as to when we will hear about approval of exceptional financial support.
“But I am told that we will have that before the end of the financial year, and I think the hope is that that will be before we’re setting budgets at full council, as obviously that has an impact for next year.
“If, for any reason, we did not get approval for exceptional financial support, it’s a strange one because, obviously at that point, we wouldn’t have enough income to cover our resources, so I would have to issue a 114 [effective bankruptcy] at which point we would go into discussion about potential of exceptional financial support and any other actions that we would take.”
She added: “Just to give reassurance that, clearly, all I’ve done since I’ve been here is make sure that we are acting as if we are in a 114 light, if I can put it that way.
“So, all of the work that we have been doing to manage our resources has been around actually putting in place the structures that would be there if we were in 114, the difference would be stepping some of that up even further.”
Council leader Nick Mannion (Macclesfield, Lab) said: “Obviously we’ve significantly reduced the projected overspend by around £10m [over the past few months] and there’s a lot of hard work gone into that.”
He said no council had yet have received confirmation from the government as to whether they were going to be able to use a section of financial support for 2025/26 ‘so that’s not just us, it’s all authorities’.
“I’m sure the government knows local authorities need to set their budget by the end of February, and the decision will be forthcoming,” said Cllr Mannion.
(Story by Belinda Ryan, local democracy reporter)
Agree with your comments Louise, there has been some extremely poor decision making at CEC involving millions of pounds. The people responsible need to be held account!
We currently pay £261 per month, yes you read that correctly. We have to pay a subscription to have the green bin to be emptied of £59 per year totalling £3,191 to have our bins took irregularly. What the hell are you doing with ours and everyone else’s money. Labour you are a cancer of any council, all on the take, all bent and some of you are downright evil.
11 Million pounds spent on a Multistorey Car Park that wasnt needed.
Now building an Heritage Centre when better use could have been made of the old Library.
CEC councillors just wasting Council Tax payers money – what a Disgrace!
11 Million pounds spent on a Multi Storey Car Park that wasn’t needed in a town with no decent shops.
Now spending Millions of pounds on a Heritage Centre when CEC could have better made use of the old Library. Nothing wrong with the old library just needed a new heating system.
CEC use your resources you have better. The fat cat councillors should give up their salaries to pay the deficits!
I could fix this in a month and I’d do it for free just because I can, don’t think I’m both qualified and experienced and much more than a grand a day
What a mess, but this is what happens when you let people who are so incompetent at there jobs be in charge, nobody held accountable for years of bad decisions, snd now they stand there with no shame holding out there begging bowls
Totally incompetence been going on for years councillors & overpaid staff gold plated pensions around 30% of council receipts. I believe Macclesfield Borough council wants a divorce from Cheshire East. A classic example of spend spend spend now begging for a bailout,Starmer & Co should no no no.
.
Let’s not forget the £21 million they paid for B&Q! If you are in debt then sell the assets and chase the unpaid council tax owed. Simples!
10 million to Icelandic bank, went bust
10 million on HS2 siding not going anywhere
10 million on an unopened car park
That means they would have lots of cash no need for CT rises
Sack the managers and put someone in charge who knows about money
Can you tell me why was the multi storey car park built.THERE IS NO SHOPPING CENTRE IN CREWE! What a waste of our money..
We now pay for our green bins, and all these new houses generate more council tax income, with inadequate infrastructure elsewhere.
You are still employing executives on six figure salaries
Is it any wonder you can’t manage.
Tell me you know nothing about SEN Parents and their struggles they go through. Ignorant comment. I suggest you get educated on the process of applying for specialist provision before commenting next time.
Due to people being unable to do their job
Adele Taylor earns over £1000 per day.
Is this the interim executive officer who is getting paid £1,600 a day plus £200 to the recruitment agency. And it is not a miss print
Urgently review your expenses ,annual rises and services you provide .Now look deeply into the whole ‘ label on a kid ,it’s got SEN ?so now this qualifies me to get a taxi to and from school and I don’t have to worry about going out anymore …said the lazy parent .
This is costing a fortune as I know taxi drivers making a killing do a school run each day .
Pay performance related pay to Heads of department in charge at CE ,you don’t deliver ,you over spend you get pay reduced
Perhaps the financial manager can forgo some of her £1298 per day salary to cover the shortfall…
It Depends it’s the Managers that overspend I work in care in Cheshire East on the front line so to speak we don’t overspend it’s the people in power that do that
Someone wants locking up for that multistorey car park, definitely suspicious, needs investigation
Just what does Cheshire East do with our money.
When staying in Manchester I see flat suburban streets gritted if there’s a frost forecast, whereas not even steep bus routes get gritted in Congleton when there’s been days of frost and snow. Road sweepers regularly clean the gutters of those suburban streets and I never see one around here. The list goes on.
There is to much red tape these days in councils.
There’s to much work going out to subcontractors costing an arm and a leg to complete jobs.
There’s people doing work for the councils that are not qualified or experienced to do the jobs,
I was only speaking to work men the other day doing some pavement work,
I said how long has it taken you to do this small job, they said about an hour there’s no rush.
I said I served my time as a paviors mason 4 year apprenticeship.
The man replied I’ve never done this type of work before, IM A GAS FITTER BY TRADE, HIS MATE SAID IM AN ELECTRICIAN BY TRADE.
My eyes just rolled up in the top of my head in confusion.
People are doing work with no experience and no wonder the work is shabby and doesn’t last.
Pot holes in the road what a waste of money 💰 I asked a local councillor why is there somebody going round spraying white paint around the hole,
Reply to identify it to be done,
It has to be as big as a dinner plate and at least 2.5 to 3 deep.
By the time it’s to be done how do they now which one as now it’s been left so long traffic has erased the paint from around the hole.
Use common sense councils if you would avoid the hole because of the damage it would cause then repaired it,
It’s not ROCKET SCIENCE IS IT WE CAN MAKE SAVING HERE BY REMOVING THE RED TAPE OF SOMEBODY WASTING TIME AND MONEY IDENTEFING HOLES .
How much is wasted here how many people are doing this job for the boys work,
O then to come back and check the work.
Why DOESN’T CHESHIRE EAST COUNCIL HAVE A DEBATE WITH THE RESIDENTS OF CREWE.
I will give you the answer in one they will listen with deaf ears do all the nodding cross the tees dot the eye AND DO NOTHING BUT CARRY ON LIKE BLIND MOLES DIGGING HOLES TO NO WHERE,
We are the residents of Crewe we pay our RATES AND TAXES and you councillors have nothing to show for it DISGUSTING.
You are only bankrupt if your outgoings exceed you income. Do less with what you have.
No VOTE no TAX.shit council simple as that
The council isn’t anything like a business. They have statutory costs like social care that they legally have to pay for regardless of their deficit. The cost of social care is significant and it is ballooning, but correctly no-one in their right mind is suggesting the council stops or cuts back on social care.
Clearly the council is still being run badly nothing has change. The waste and the unnecessary layer of management in every department is staggering. However the council is so over spent they cannot afford redundancy packages.
To be fair to social the budget is so poor they cannot meet service and so if it is over spent so be it as it was not funded properly in the first place.
I hope they have ended the expensive leases on offices and stopped all unessary refurbishment of council chamber, rooms and offices. The council has been run properly since it was divided. In 2009. I5s a shame. To see the people be let down but that’s what’s happen when manager don’t like being critiqued and told they have no clue how to run a department. When worker are removed from projects that save the council millions because a senior manager does not like the person you have to ask who should have gone.
So CE lied when they said they are applying for the increase but no plans to increase CT.
Put CE in special measures, bring in auditors, , restrict, reduce costs , move on.
If those councillors who took out over ONE MILLION POUNDS in expenses last year, perhaps they should consider repaying that back into the coiffers, at least it would reduce the shortfall.
David Marren. It appears there is no regular frequent financial reporting. It always seems that they only notice the stable door is open when the horse is found in France. Could a source of the problem be less frequent committee’s to keep a check on the situation. Wouldn’t have happened pre 2009.
So you build a 11 million pound car park that people don’t use plus you can’t afford to open up and you pay part time ceo’s and other people within the company around 3,000 pounds per day no wonder your broke
Councillors approve a balanced budget at the start of each financial year. Any significant overspend should result in the officers who have overspent their budgets being held to personally account. It is for Councillors to hold them to account.
Tell us something we don’t know,I’m afraid to say the council only has its self to blame with its incompetent over many years.
The position it finds itself in know could have been mitigated with robust processes and a proper foreword thinking plan,which is something any successful private buisness does.
Unfortunately the public sector are inherently inefficient with large amounts of waste, more money will not fix an inefficient system.