Somerset Council has identified five key areas to prioritise for investment which could improve outcomes for thousands of Somerset residents and save millions of pounds.
Budget papers going to the Council’s Corporate and Resources Scrutiny meeting on 28 January include an update on the diagnostic phase of the Council’s Inspiring Innovation transformation programme.
This highlights significant opportunities which could benefit up to 1,700 residents. Current investments of £15.3m in the Inspiring Innovation programme are forecast to return £20.6m of savings, with further work underway to develop the other opportunities identified which could potentially save between £31m to £57m by 2030/31.
The Inspiring Innovation programme is critical to help Somerset Council balance its budget with latest figures showing the council is facing a £41m budget gap for the 2026/27 financial year as it looks to set its budget in February. This has already been reduced from a £101m gap projected in March 2025, and a £73m gap identified in December 2025.
Cllr Bill Revans, Leader of Somerset Council, said:
Our finances remain fragile and we have repeatedly called for the government to take urgent action to reform the broken system of using Council Tax to fund social care.
However, we’ve also been doing everything in our power locally to reduce spending. We’ve already made significant progress in reducing our projected budget gap by £60m over the past 12 months.
Now I’m pleased to see details emerging of the priority areas identified by our ambitious Inspiring Innovation transformation programme which are key to balancing our books in the long term.
We believe we can make significant savings by investing in these five areas initially, but better still we will also be improving the lives of Somerset residents.
We will be pushing for further transformation business cases and expecting Inspiring Innovation to deliver further savings as part of our long-term focus on a sustainable future delivering better outcomes and opportunities.
The five priority areas for transformation are:
- Adult Social Care – Prevention of Demand: Expanding and increasing preventative services, including developing outreach offers to support those at risk of preventable events like falls or carer breakdowns.
- Adult Social Care – Working Age Adults: Enabling greater independence for our working age adults with Learning Disabilities. By carrying out targeted reviews we can ensure residents are in the right accommodation setting with the right care package to help them progress towards independence. We will also support with access to employment, volunteering and assistive technology.
- Housing – Temporary Accommodation: Improving capacity and effectiveness for prevention work in our Housing teams to reduce the reliance on temporary accommodation.
- Third Party Spend: Trial phase to identify potential savings by seeking better value in our procurement processes and supply chain.
- Children’s Residential Review and Children Looked After (CLA) Programme: Four-month initiative to identify and generate plans for children in residential care who could, where appropriate, step across to more family-based or independent settings.
The Inspiring Innovation programme is being funded by selling property and assets, not from the Council’s revenue budget which is used for everyday running costs. The allocated budget for the whole programme is £45m with an expectation of return-on-investment of 3 to 1 – meaning an overall saving of £135m over five years.
In order to close the £41m budget gap for 2026/27, the Council will need to reduce expected cost pressures and request further Exceptional Financial Support from the Government. This could be in the form of a Council Tax rise above the cap of 4.99% or through a further capitalisation direction (which allows councils to sell assets or borrow money and use the proceeds to fund the budget gap and the day-to-day running costs).
Following discussion at Scrutiny on 28 January, the Council’s budget will then be considered by Executive on 11 February before going to Full Council on 25 February for final decisions.
Papers containing full details can be found on the Council’s website.
