Government IS granting Hillingdon Council the £150m EFS bailout – avoiding bankruptcy

We have written much about our Council’s perilous financial position.  Thankfully the government have agreed in-principle this afternoon to grant Exceptional Financial Support to 35 councils, including Hillingdon. 

This means our Council can borrow £150m as part of an emergency bailout.  It’ll cost us all with repayments in the long term, but it allows the Council to set next year’s budget (with borrowed money) without going bankrupt.

The full Council meeting at 19:30 on Thursday evening is when the Budget for 2025/26 will be agreed.  It will be livestreamed, and anyone can attend the Civic Centre in person to watch.

Is it normal for a council to need a bailout?

Hillingdon Council is likely to make a big point of the fact that 34 other councils also needed this emergency bailout, but the remains that there are 317 councils and about 90% of councils didn’t need one.  Is it normal to need a bailout when only 10% of councils needed one?

“It’s all the refugees, Heathrow, and Chagossians!”

No: it’s just not.  We are likely to hear lots made of the unfair burden of refugees, the impact from Heathrow, and the cost of Chagossian arrivals over the next few days from our Council.  The numbers do not support these claims.

Refugees
We know from Freedom of Information requests in the second half of last year that support for refugees left Hillingdon short by about £5m.  Does a £5m cost make up much of a £150m bailout?

Heathrow
We’ll be covering the actual impact from Heathrow in the next few weeks, following the robust and ongoing scrutiny from Cllr Kaur at the Residents’ Services Select Committee over the last six months.

Chagossians
Depending how they define what a year is, and perhaps which day it is, Hillingdon claims a cost of £2m or £2.6m for Chagossian arrivals, we can’t see a pattern yet.  We’re working on it, but last month our Council triumphantly reported that they had been reimbursed by the government for the 2024/25 cost of Chagossian arrivals. Does even a £2.6m cost make up much of a £150m bailout?