Finance chiefs at Enfield Council have painted a bleak picture for the years to come as they look to plug a £30 million funding shortfall for the next financial year.

In the latest civic centre finance report, a £30.3 million gap is projected for 2025/26, with a £86 million gap for the years between 2025 and 2029 without future rises in council tax or government funding.

For the current financial year, the council is projecting a £9.4 million overspend, which needs to be reduced before the end of March or met from reserves.

At an overview and scrutiny committee last week (Wednesday, October 20) Neil Goddard, Enfield’s head of financial strategy, said temporary accommodation (TA) and homelessness services, as well as external care placements and the loss of housing benefit subsidy were among the “main pressure areas”.

Work to reduce the figure includes overspend and spend control panels, action plans around the housing benefit subsidy loss and temporary accommodation, and demand management plans for adult social care.

Mr Goddard added: “Enfield is not alone, across London the average gross overspend on TA is about £18.8m.” 

In terms of government funding, Mr Goddard said Enfield was the fourth most underfunded authority in England based on relative need to relative funding, but had a track record of balancing its budget.

Committee chair Cllr Nicki Adeleke asked what work was being done to ask central government for more funding.

Ian Davis, the council’s chief executive, said Enfield and other London councils had lobbied over housing and TA, a fairer funding formula for outer London boroughs, and adults and children’s services.

Conservative councillor Maria Alexandrou said the council needed to be “bolder” over temporary accomodation.

She said: “I think there’s still around 3,000 empty homes in the borough. I know the council has a plan to bring so many back into use, I think around 60 a year, but is there a way to push that so we can have a lot more? 

“There’s no point having empty houses when there’s people that need houses, I’m wondering what we can do to work with landlords?”

Mr Davis said: “Only about 17% of the people approaching us actually take up provision with us finding them a property, the rest of them we deal with by doing upstream work, so we will seek to try and stop them being evicted in the first place.”

Mr Davis said the council was buying street-based homes up via the housing revenue account (HRA), which was currently better value than Housing Gateway (a council-owned company set up to reduce TA pressures).

He added that the government’s move to double council tax on second homes, which comes into effect in April, acted as a potential incentive for people to come forward. The council is also looking to work with existing landlords to “secure them” in “longer term agreements with longer leases”. 

Conservative councillors Michael Rye and James Hockney asked about the council’s reserves position.

Jo Moore, the executive director of resources said: “In terms of the level reserves, most councils have reduced their reserves significantly.”

She added that in January she would have to “take a view” on the reserve’s adequacy but added they weren’t currently at a “critical level”.