Job losses likely as council looks to save £170m

Essex County Council is forecasting job cuts and a budget gap of £170m next year with its Reform UK leadership predicting "significant re-organisation and rationalisation will be necessary".

The council's budget for 2027-28 is expected to be £1.4bn and leader Peter Harris said it was "likely to include a reduction in job posts and regrettably, where necessary, redundancies" among the authority's 9,000 employees.

Harris said he had written to the Labour government about a £50m cut in grant funding for the authority as part of a new "fair funding" formula where councils with higher levels of deprivation are getting more money.

The government has been contacted for a response.

No figure has been given by Reform on how many jobs might be cut or how services could be changed.

Harris told the BBC: "The budget review is happening right now, so by mid to the end of November we will know what financial situation we're in and where we need to go with this."

The authority also said it would "re-examine" the council's work-from-home programme which has many different arrangements for staff, depending on their role.

In January, a budget gap of £110m was forecast for 2027-28.

It has widened with growing demand for children's services leading to a £20m overspend in 2026-27. In January, the then Conservative administration budgeted for £239m for children's and early years services. The county council is forecasting a £61m increase in that figure for 2027-28.

The authority has argued that central government's "fair funding formula" would leave it worse off.

Labour approved a new formula to distribute more money to councils with higher levels of deprivation and lower ability to raise taxes locally, and relatively less to areas that tend to be more rural.

Opposition Conservative councillor Lee Scott said: "The deficit is rising, and it has risen even more because of the unfair funding from central government."

Liberal Democrat David King said the coming council budget was "an enormous challenge" and supported Reform in challenging the government over the funding it was providing.

In February, the then Local Government Minister Alison McGovern said the new formula was "reconnecting funding with need" and "the most deprived places will receive 45% more funding per head than the least deprived in 2028-29".

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) has been contacted for further comment.

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