A finance report, considered by Cabinet last night (15 July 2025), highlights a projected deficit of £38m at the end of 2024/25 despite the council making efficiency savings of £12.9m.
The council had initially agreed with the government up to £28m to cover that deficit with exceptional financial support, but judicious use of various contingency funds and reserves reduced this to a £10m borrowing requirement to close this budget.
Haringey receives 15 per cent less per resident than the England average and recently set out a ‘roadmap to financial sustainability’ including addressing funding shortfalls over the lifetime of a multi-year settlement.
The government spending review in June showed funding for local government will increase by just 3.1% over the next three years, which is far outstripped by inflation alone. The review does not address increasing demand for key services such as children’s, adults’ and temporary accommodation, which has put the council’s finances under significant strain.
The finance report shows costs of adult social care have risen by 20% more than the predicted budgeted to £95.5m, while temporary accommodations cost increased by 42% to £33m. Funding from government is around £143m less in real terms than in 2010 despite these spiralling costs and demands.
However, despite these challenges, last year, Haringey spent £318m on delivering day to day services, which includes adult social care supporting almost 3,920 vulnerable residents, children’s social care supporting more than 5,000 and 2,630 households in temporary accommodation.
Cllr Dana Carlin, Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Services, said:
We are an efficient council that delivers well-run services our residents rely on but are facing unsustainable financial pressures.
This report sets out very clearly that ever-growing demand for key services and rising costs means we are continuing to face a funding emergency.
Haringey is a borough with high levels of deprivation and deep inequalities between east and west, yet we receive substantially lower funding per person than the England average.
This cannot continue, and we are renewing our calls for a fairer funding system that both protects critical services and enables us to invest in prevention to keeps costs down and meet the needs of all our communities.
We are ambitious about what we can do to help local people, even with very serious limits on local public spending, and will work tirelessly to make the borough fairer and greener with the tools and funds that we have.
At the same meeting, councillors considered a report on the Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS).
This highlights that work is well underway to consider and mitigate the spending pressures for 2026/27 and beyond, which will ensure the council minimises the use of EFS in future years.
