Bromley's first budget check of the year forecasts a £4.6m service overspend, general reserves down to £16.9m by March and a schools deficit heading for £57.6m.

Bromley Council is forecasting a £4,556,000 overspend on its services this year, on figures only three months old. The number goes to the council’s Executive at 7pm on Wednesday 16 September at the Civic Centre on Westmoreland Road (Budget Monitoring 2026/27, report FSD26052).

Investment income and central items claw back £1,474,000 of that. The net effect is a £3,082,000 hit to the council’s general reserves, which the report says will fall to £16,918,000 by 31 March 2027. They stood at £20m in April.

This is the first monitoring report of the financial year, based on spending to the end of June.

Where the overspend is

Bar chart of Bromley Council's forecast 2026/27 overspend by portfolio: Children, Education and Families £1.782m, Renewal, Recreation and Housing £1.484m, Adult Care and Health £624,000, Resources, Commissioning and Contracts Management £496,000, Environment and Community £170,000, Public Protection and Enforcement nil
Chart by Bromley Online, from Bromley Council report FSD26052, September 2026.

Two portfolios account for £3.27m of the £4.56m:

  • Children, Education and Families, £1,782,000 over on a £98.7m budget. The pressures are children’s social care and special educational needs placements, and social worker staffing.
  • Renewal, Recreation and Housing, £1,484,000 over on a £39.4m budget, driven by temporary accommodation.
  • Adult Care and Health, £624,000 over on £132.1m. Assessment and care management placements and mental health placements are over; learning disability and mental health placements are under.
  • Resources, Commissioning and Contracts Management, £496,000 over.
  • Environment and Community, £170,000 over.
  • Public Protection and Enforcement, on budget.

Not everything is going the wrong way. Interest on the council’s cash balances is running about £2m above budget, partly because a £36m High Needs Stability Grant arrived after the budget was set and lifted the council’s cash position. Rent from the council’s investment properties is £358,000 short, mainly through lease expiries and empty space at Market Square in Bromley town centre.

The schools deficit is the bigger number

Buried in section 4.8 is a figure far larger than the overspend. The Dedicated Schools Grant, the ring-fenced money that pays for schools and high needs provision, is projected to overspend by £17,584,000 this year. Added to the £39,979,000 already carried forward, that gives an estimated deficit of £57,563,000 by 31 March 2027.

That money cannot be moved to or from the rest of the council’s budget. Officers are working on a recovery plan with the Department for Education. Government has indicated it will fund up to 90% of the deficit built up to 2025/26, subject to conditions, but the report says the outcome will not be known until around October 2026 at the earliest. The council is assuming 90% for this year and next as well.

Reserves are doing the heavy lifting

Bromley set its 2026/27 budget planning to draw £25,422,000 out of reserves. The overspend pushes that to £28,504,000.

The report restates the gap ahead: £43m in 2027/28 and £61m in 2028/29. It says the government’s funding review will cut Bromley’s settlement funding in real terms by more than £30m a year by 2028/29, which “eliminates any significant scope for future additional funding being available”. It also warns that capital receipts, the money raised by selling council property, are no longer flowing as they were after the recent disposal programme.

The report’s own general fund table mislabels its years, showing balances at April 2025 and March 2026. The text at paragraph 4.4.1 is the one to read: £16,918,000 at 31 March 2027.

The savings are on track, but read the small print

A second report to the same meeting says the transformation programme is delivering. Of £32,173,000 of savings agreed for this year, £32,067,000 (99.7%) is on track. Only £106,000 is rated red (Transforming Bromley 2024-29 mid-year report).

The three that will not be delivered are small and specific:

  • closing the Royston Contact Centre, £40,000, which the Chief Executive has agreed to remove from the savings programme
  • a lane rental scheme, £50,000, now dependent on a London Councils timetable pointing at October 2027
  • roadside advertising boards, £16,000, withdrawn because of national policy restrictions

The report then makes a point most councils leave out. Of the £32.173m, £12,954,000 is “corporate and technical adjustments”: £9.3m of pension fund contribution adjustments, a £3m council tax surplus and £634,000 of energy savings. The genuine service transformation is the remaining £19,219,000, and within that roughly a third is amber. In the report’s own words, “Members should judge transformation delivery on the service portion.”

The amber savings are concentrated in five schemes worth £5,690,000 between them: right sizing domiciliary care (£2.5m), reducing the number of children looked after (£1.38m), the 0 to 25 transformation (£1m), a fifteen-year temporary accommodation lease (£500,000) and merging two specialist children in care social work teams (£310,000).

What the council’s own risk register says

Bromley’s finance risk register goes to the Executive, Resources and Contracts scrutiny committee on Monday 14 September. It rates “In Year Revenue Overspend” at 25 out of 25 before controls, the highest gross score on the register, and 16 after them, against a target of 9. The entry was reviewed on 3 August (Appendix D, Finance Risk Register).

The listed effects of that risk, and of the cost and growth pressures risk beside it, include the “inability to balance the budget for the following financial year, resulting in s114 notice or request for exceptional financial support”. That is the register describing what the risk would look like if it were not managed, not a statement that either is happening. A section 114 notice is the formal declaration a council issues when it cannot balance its books.

What it means for you

Nothing on your bill changes this week. The council tax rate for 2026/27 was set in February and runs to next April; you can check what each band pays in Bromley.

What this report does tell you is where the pressure will land when next year’s budget is set:

  • Services for children and families carry the largest single overspend and the largest amber savings.
  • Temporary accommodation is the fastest growing housing cost, and the council’s mitigation is a fifteen-year lease deal that is not yet secured.
  • SEND provision sits behind a deficit that is heading for £57.6m and depends on a Department for Education decision expected around next month.
  • Reserves are being used to bridge the gap. Once they are spent they cannot be spent again, and the report puts next year’s gap at £43m.

Wednesday’s meeting is held in public at the Civic Centre, Churchill Court, 2 Westmoreland Road, BR1 1AS. The deadline for written public questions on these reports has passed, but the papers and, afterwards, the minutes are published on the council’s own committee site.

Sources