A section 114 notice only applies to a single financial year, so it is possible for it to happen more than once.
The key figure which determines it is the in-year budget gap.
At the point the notice was issued, that stood at about £23m.
A year on, the latest figure the council has provided for 2024-25 is £2.9m – I’m told this could increase in the coming weeks, but only marginally.
It still looks like a big number, but in council budget terms, it’s not considered insurmountable.
And at a glance, it looks like things are moving in the right direction.
But here’s the big caveat – a huge part of the gap has been made up by something called “exceptional financial support” (EFS).
That’s a technical process which involves selling council assets…
