Hackney Council needs to save £67m by 2028, mayor reveals

The borough’s finances are ‘worse than previously thought’

Hackney’s mayor has said the borough must be prepared for cuts to local services after revealing the council needs to save £67 million by 2028.

On Monday, Town Hall finance chief Cllr Robert Chapman told fellow cabinet members that the borough’s accounts were worse than previously thought.

A predicted overspend of £36 million, announced in September, has now risen to more than £38 million, he confirmed.

“This is largely due to huge pressures we face from the increasing demand for adult and children’s social care and homelessness prevention,” Cllr Chapman explained.

Balacing the budget means the local authority will have to lean on its reserves, but this is “not a long-term answer”, he added.

Cllr Chapman also noted that spiralling costs for these vital services would influence budget-setting for years to come.

“Given that we’ve had 14 years of Tory government austerity, and also the £22 billion black hole in the national economy, the restraints on Chancellor Rachel Reeves have been severe and remain a serious problem for our budget,” he said.

The medium-term financial plan agreed by the cabinet on Monday estimates that in order to balance the books, Hackney Council needs to save a total of £67 million between April 2025 and April 2028.

While welcoming the “much-needed” additional funding set out in the Chancellor’s autumn budget, Hackney mayor Caroline Woodley maintained that there were limits to how much the Treasury can help local authorities at this stage.

“A single budget could not address the years of underfunding that we’ve had in local government,” she said.

In a public statement released yesterday, Mayor Woodley added that despite the borough’s strong track record in managing its finances, “our real-terms funding from the government this year is 40 per cent less than it was in 2010”.

Frontline services like adult and children’s social care, and support for special educational needs and disabilities, would be protected, but the need for further savings means “some of the services we currently offer won’t be sustainable”, Woodley said.

“As much of our shortfall as possible will be made up by changing how we work — investing in areas that will save money in the long run, so we can maintain and improve our services while reducing costs.

“However, we will need to make some very tough decisions as we work to balance our budget. We will do so carefully, transparently and – most importantly – prioritising the needs of Hackney’s most vulnerable residents first.”