Luton Borough Council

08/12/2021 - Report confirms Luton Council is financially well-run

We are pleased an independent assessment into how we manage the public purse on behalf of the community has concluded we took early, decisive and correct decisions when faced with the huge challenge of income reduction as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic

Earlier this year, Luton Council received Exceptional Financial Support from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities (DLUHC). Exceptional Financial Support is a directive from the government which has allowed us to borrow up to £49m to fund services up until 2022. We only drew down £15.8m of this, which is another indicator that our decisive action to bring in an emergency budget in 2020 has helped the council to address the financial challenge posed by COVID 19.

As part of this process, the government commissioned an independent review by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) into the council’s financial affairs and competence. They have completed their evaluation and the report highlights the town’s exceptional vulnerability to the difficulties faced by the problems of the aviation industry because of the council’s commercial interest in the success of London Luton Airport.

Nevertheless it confirms that not only does the Council have a strong history of robust financial management, but that we took appropriate and timely action once the current and potential future financial impact of Covid-19 had been assessed.

This early and decisive financial readjustment through an emergency budget has placed the council in a very strong position to recover post-Covid, and placed us in a far stronger position than other authorities currently facing similar extremely challenging circumstances.

The report acknowledged that, along with other councils, significant challenges remain – particularly with regards to the provision of statutory adult social care and children’s provision, as well as implementing a further rigorous cost-efficient savings programme. However, our challenge is not as great as some other authorities due to our early and decisive action and, unlike some of them, we did not have to use any of our reserves to balance our budget.

The report includes a number of recommendations, most of which have already been implemented by the council to stabilise our finances in the aftermath of the pandemic. Our central focus is on delivering the Luton 2040 vision and making Luton a healthy, fair and sustainable town, where everyone can thrive and no-one has to live in poverty.

This has included ensuring that we are less reliant on income from the airport to fund services locally in the future, but we also recognise and are fully committed to maximising the success of our largest asset, which remains critical to Luton’s economic recovery from the pandemic.

Read the full report on the government website.