Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what discussions his Department has had with Cornwall Council on their financial challenges and proposed reductions to services and staff.

Officials from the Department regularly speak with a range of local authorities around their finances as part of ongoing engagement with the sector.

The provisional Local Government Finance Settlement for 2022/23 makes available an additional £3.5 billion to councils, including funding for adult social care reform. This is an increase in local authority funding for 2022/23 of over 4% in real terms, which will ensure councils across the country have the resources they need to deliver key services.

In total, we expect Core Spending Power to rise from £50.4 billion in 2021/22 to up to £53.9 billion next year. For Cornwall Council this means Core Spending Power increasing from £513.5 million to £549.3 million.

It is for locally elected councils to make decisions around services in their local areas. We continue to encourage any local authority that is worried it is unable to set a balanced budget to come forward and speak to the Department.