West Sussex County Council warns of £24.5m budget overspend as social care costs rise
The increasing cost of social care for children and adults has seen West Sussex County Council predicting a budget overspend of £24.5m for 2026/27.
The figure, as at the end of June, was shared during a scrutiny committee meeting on Friday (September 18). It represents 2.8 per cent of the council’s overall budget.
Jane Davey, cabinet member for finance & property, said this was an improvement on 2025/26 but reserves would still need to be used to balance the budget for the fourth year running.
She added: “The continued use of reserves to fund revenue expenditure is not sustainable.
“We do not want to find ourselves in the same position as our neighbours East Sussex – who had to request £70m of exceptional financial support – and Brighton & Hove – who requested £15m of exceptional financial support and have since requested a further £30m.”
Between April and the end of June, adults services overspent by £9m, while children’s services overspent by £16m.
Ms Davey said this was driven by the increasing complexity of the needs dealt with by those services, as well as the expense of things such as home-to-school transport.
Regarding the latter, £1m is expected to be cut from the home-to-school transport budget in 2026/27. This is on top of the £800,000 in 2024/25 and £500,000 in 2025/26.
At the moment, the council’s general reserve stands at £36m while the budget management reserve stands at £12m. If things continue as they are, this should be enough to plug a budget gap one more time.
Following a question from Gary Dowsett (Ref, Imberdown) about the sustainability of the reserves and what their levels would have to be to cause concern, Ms Davey said: “I think it’s fair to say that we’re concerned at the moment.
“Obviously because we haven’t got the reserves that we’d like to and, for the fourth year running we are in danger of using them for revenue expenditure, which is not where we want to be.”