Sheffield Council to reject 20 per cent cut to support for Tramlines Fringe, Doc Fest and other events

It comes as the council is already estimating an overspend of £21.7 million this year – a figure that has been increasing every month.

Council officers said this is largely from social care, the effects of a proposed pay increase and repairs and maintenance.

This proposed budget cut to a fund of £235,000 for events such as Doc Fest, British Swimming, Tramlines Fringe, Cliffhanger and the Festival of the Outdoors would save the council in the region of £50,000.

But officers said it could result in lost opportunities and negatively impact the success of events – and therefore recommended it be taken off the table and savings are made elsewhere.

They added: “Whilst not all Sheffield Council events activity sits within this budget, this budget does support a number of medium scale events which are important to the city, many of which are based on a long-standing relationship, are synonymous with Sheffield and bring in regional and national visitors into the city.

“Events are a critical part of animating the city and particular post Covid have been an effective way of driving footfall and economic activity in the city centre and district centres. By reducing this budget we would seek to minimise the impact on individual events by working with them to support further external funding bids. However, this may well impact on the scale and deliverability of the events that we are supporting and would limit the ability to respond to other one-off small-scale event opportunities within the year.”

This is one of several cuts the economic development and skills committee will consider in a meeting this week. Others include a 10 to 15 percent reduction across budgets within economic development and skills – which was recommended for approval.

Even with the proposed cuts, the committee will still have a budget gap to close by the end of the year.

Out of reserves

Ryan Keyworth, director of finance, said the council had run out of reserves – £25 million set aside to manage budget overspends.

He said: “To have them spoken for at this relatively early stage in the year is not an ideal place to be to put it mildly.”

He added: “This is the only year we are going to be able to put aside £25 million in reserves].

“That means the budget implementation plans for 2023/24 that we are currently developing are going to have to be far more robust and to a much higher standard in terms of the cash delivery that is expected.

“It’s quite likely that I’m going to reject some of the budget implementation plans as they come forward simply on that basis.”

Councillor Shaffaq Mohammed, leader of Sheffield Liberal Democrats and member of the strategy and resources committee, previously said there were £15 million worth of savings offered last year that Labour and the Green Party decided not to take that are now likely to be on the table again. This included cutting expensive home packages for social care.

He said “alarm bells are being sounded”.