Ealing Council is facing a 20% cut in its main government grant over the next two years – forcing the council to make the biggest budget cuts in its history.

In the provisional local government settlement announced on Monday 13 December 2010 Ealing Council has one of the worst grant settlements in outer London. It is facing a grant reduction of 12.3% next year.

Council Leader, Councillor Julian Bell said: “The scale of cuts being forced on local authorities is unprecedented. We had planned to reduce budgets by 25% over the next three years, yet our main government grant will be slashed by 20% in just two years.”

"We took the sensible precaution to plan for these cuts so that we didn’t have to slash and slice indiscriminately but I am in no doubt that this tough financial settlement will cause real pain to our residents."

"We are doing everything possible to protect frontline services by improving efficiency, cutting overheads and finding new and cheaper ways of doing things."

"But, given the amount of reductions needed and the savage speed at which they are being made, it is inevitable that we will run out of these types of savings and have less time to recoup the money from the changes we are introducing."

The council has to respond to the government by 17 January 2011 with its comments on the settlement.

The key settlement facts include:

• Ealing’s main grant will reduce in 2011/12 by £21million (-12.3%) reducing it to £145million.
• Ealing’s main grant will reduce further in 2012/13 by £13million in cash terms (a reduction of -8.4%).
• The number of specific grants that the council receives has been scaled back and those grants that the council will receive have been cut

Councillor Yvonne Johnson, cabinet member for Finance and Performance, said: "Although we are doing everything possible to limit the damage of these cuts it is very difficult when our main government grant has been cut by 12.3% next year."