Oldham asks government to 'be kind' as it faces crushing £20m black hole

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Oldham councillors called for the government to ‘be kind’ to local authorities ahead of a long-awaited settlement announcement on Wednesday (December 18).

The plea came as Oldham bosses met to discuss the borough's finances on Monday (December 16). The council is still facing a predicted overspend of £20.4m for this year.

The finance lead, councillor Abdul Jabbar said: “I’m very much hoping that when the local government provisional settlement is published on Wednesday, that government will be kind to us and give us the resources that we need to deal with the ongoing issues that we’ve had for many, many years. READ MORE: Major transport strike set for this weekend OFF after Andy Burnham makes 'full and final offer' “We’ve got to a situation where the overspend in-year pressure is into the millions.

We’ve never had that in the past. And the reason is absolutely not because we’re handling our finances badly. It’s purely and simply because of the pressure we’re seeing in homelessness, children’s placements and adult social care.” The overspend is because of the rising demands and cost of adult social care, children’s services and temporary accommodation.