Kent County Council and Hampshire County Council have warned the prime minister that they will be forced to declare “effective bankruptcy”.
The leaders of the Conservative-run councils said even “drastic cuts” to current services would not be enough to patch up the huge holes in their budgets created by soaring inflation and rising pressures in adult and children’s social care.
The councils said that without a long-term funding plan they would be “likely to be considering section 114 notices in the next year or so”.
While issuing a section 114 notice will not result in councils stopping core services, it formally obliges them to formulate drastic cuts to services, make job cuts and announce fire sales of assets such as social housing, development sites and office buildings.
