Basildon's own report says reserves would fall from £41m to £977,000 by 2029/30 if this year's £3.4m overspend and the budget gap come out of them.
Basildon Council is forecasting a £3.4m overspend on its day to day budget this year, and a further £4.5m overspend on its council housing account. Both numbers are in the council’s own quarter one report, which went to the Finance, Procurement and Efficiency Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday 8 September.
The figure that matters most is further down the report. If this year’s overspend and the projected gap in future budgets both have to be met from reserves, the council’s General Fund reserves would fall from £41.1m to £977,000 by the end of 2029/30.
The report says so plainly:
The estimated closing reserve balance for 2029/30 is concerning. Based on current forecasts, reserves would be largely exhausted in addressing the forecast 2026/27 outturn position and the projected budget gap.
That is a scenario, not a prediction, and the report presents it as one. It is what happens if nothing else changes.
Where the £3.4m is going
The General Fund budget for 2026/27 is £49.3m. The forecast at the end of June was £52.6m. The overspend is concentrated in two portfolios and offset by one:
- Housing: £2.7m over budget, against a £1.6m budget. That is a 173% variance.
- Service Improvement: £1.2m over budget, against a £0.8m budget.
- Environment and Leisure: £0.3m over budget, mainly staffing in the cleansing service.
- Planning and Infrastructure: £0.8m under budget, entirely because planning income has come in higher than expected.
Inside the housing figure, one line does most of the work. Temporary accommodation was budgeted at £5.589m and is forecast at £7.671m, an overspend of £2.082m. The council’s budget monitoring detail by portfolio sets that out line by line.
The report blames the gap between private rents and the frozen Local Housing Allowance. Tenants cannot bridge it, arrears build, evictions follow, and the council picks up a statutory duty it then has to discharge in nightly paid accommodation. It does record one piece of better news: the growth in the number of households in nightly paid temporary accommodation has slowed over the past 12 months, and the team has negotiated better rates with providers.
A second, smaller item in the same portfolio is worth knowing about. Council garages are forecast £0.4m short on income, because a proposed review of garage charges was dropped and the charges were frozen for 2026/27 instead. The report says that income “cannot now be recovered”.
The council housing account is in worse shape
The Housing Revenue Account is ring fenced. It is funded by council house rents and cannot be propped up by the General Fund, or the other way round. It was budgeted to run a small surplus of £325,000. It is now forecast to overspend by £4.5m.
The drivers:
- Repairs, £1.7m over. An ageing stock, more intrusive repairs falling outside contract pricing, asbestos work and disrepair cases.
- Property Services, £0.8m over. Interim agency staff hired to handle damp and mould casework under Awaab’s Law.
- Strategic management and support, £0.6m over. Lost rent from longer gaps between tenants and more long term empty homes.
- Business Support, £1.2m over. Compliance work for the Regulator of Social Housing, including about £452,000 of consultancy, £500,000 to procure the new repairs contract and £25,000 on tenant satisfaction measures.
The report says no funding source has been identified for that compliance spending, and adds that HRA reserves are “now an area of serious concern”. They stood at £6.6m at the end of March 2026.
Longer voids and lost rent are the same problem we reported on last week: Basildon had 158 empty council homes and 2,376 households on the register at the last count.
The savings the budget already assumes
The 2026/27 budget banked £4.8m of net savings. At the end of June the council rated them:
- £1.3m green, expected to be delivered in full
- £2.5m amber, some risk to full delivery
- £1.0m red, unlikely without further intervention
The largest single saving, £1.8m from replacing nightly paid temporary accommodation with council owned or managed housing, is rated amber and depends on that housing coming online. The Organisation Transformation Programme, which is meant to deliver £0.8m through digital tools and artificial intelligence, is rated red.
The savings requirement does not stop there. It rises to £6.1m in 2027/28 and £7.6m from 2028/29 onwards.
The gap in future years has grown
At budget setting in February 2026 the council projected a gap of £5.8m in 2027/28, rising to £13.1m by 2029/30. Six months on, those figures are:
| Year | Gap at February 2026 | Revised gap |
|---|---|---|
| 2027/28 | £5.834m | £6.427m |
| 2028/29 | £8.097m | £8.487m |
| 2029/30 | £13.115m | £13.752m |
The main additions are a 3.3% pay award costing £275,000 more than budgeted, £267,000 of business rates growth assumptions, and £638,000 of savings from 2025/26 that were never delivered. They are partly offset by £658,000 of insurance premium savings.
What it means for you
Nothing on your bill changes today. The 2027/28 council tax is not set until February, and this report is an input to that decision rather than the decision itself. What it tells you is where the pressure will come from when the choices are made.
Three practical points:
- The same report goes to Cabinet on 24 September. Papers appear on the Cabinet meeting page a few days beforehand, and Basildon webcasts its meetings.
- Council spending over £250 is now published, down from £500. Full Council adopted a Financial Transparency and Taxpayer Accountability Charter on 18 June 2026 on a motion from Councillor Hockton, and the lower threshold took effect in the June and July reports.
- If you are at risk of losing your home, the council’s housing solutions service is the route to a homelessness duty, and going early matters more than it should, because the alternative is the nightly paid accommodation this report is about.
Our council tax bands page shows what the current year’s charge looks like for each band in the borough.
Sources
- Q1 Budget Monitoring and Medium Term Financial Strategy Update, General Fund and Housing Revenue Account 2026/27 (PDF), report to Basildon Borough Council’s Finance, Procurement and Efficiency Scrutiny Committee, 8 September 2026, for the overspend figures, the reserves scenario, the savings ratings, the MTFS gap and the transparency charter progress.
- Enclosure 1, Budget Monitoring Detail by Portfolio (PDF) for the temporary accommodation, garages and service level figures.
- Agenda and papers, Finance, Procurement and Efficiency Scrutiny Committee, 8 September 2026.
- Cabinet, 24 September 2026 for the date the report is next considered.
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