Budget summary
The Council’s draft budget sets out how the authority is proposing
to save £196 million by the end of the financial year March 2019.
The budget is based on the new Council Strategy and business plan
which aims to create a leaner, more resourceful organisation that
delivers essential council services in the most efficient and effective
way.
The Council's aim is to strengthen its partnerships with the rest of
the public and community sector in order to make as many savings
as possible without cuts to frontline services.
The unprecedented scale of the savings required means that all
areas of the Council are affected by the proposals. However, rather
than simply salami slice every service, the authority has developed
a four year plan which will help protect the three key priority areas
identified by the public and Members during last year’s budget
consultation. These are services for the most vulnerable in society,
including vulnerable adults, children, older people and the poorest,
public transport, and road repairs and maintenance.
The budget proposals are based around four key areas for
savings:
1. £31 million from the Council’s pay bill. This will be realised by
working with staff to introduce new terms from a collective
agreement arranged with trade unions, as well as further
restructuring and the transfer of staff to new models of delivery and
arm’s length companies.
2. £22.3 million from integrating public sector services. This will be
through introducing new models of delivery, including integrating
health and social care services; devolving further services to town
and parish councils and community and voluntary groups e.g.
libraries; creating trusts and partnerships to deliver services such as
culture and tourism, and seeking external partners for services such
as parking.
3. £23 million from more effective procurement and contract
management. This saving will be made through management
improvements, including delivering more services digitally and
through the Council’s website; reducing administrative costs in
areas such as information technology and postage; more effective
procurement and contract management and sharing buildings with
partners and community groups. Another £20 million of inflationary
pressures is proposed to be absorbed on top of the £23 million
identified and £6.9 million from the rationalisation of buildings and
open spaces.
4. £28.6m through the generation of additional income and trading
services and taking a more commercial approach in areas such as
public protection, licensing, planning, and waste.
Through a combination of the above and other actions the Council
estimates that out of the total savings figure some £83 million will
ultimately be derived from efficiencies.
In addition the Council has identified a number of services to a
value of at least £34 million that could potentially be taken on by
Town and Parish Councils and voluntary and community. The actual
delivery of these savings will only be known after detailed
negotiations with interested groups.
The Council’s Portfolio Advisory Committees are considering the
budget proposals, in detail, during September.
Have your say
There are a number of ways people can let us know their views of
the budget proposals.
We are holding public meetings in October; information about the
meetings is available in our calendar of public budget meetings.
There is also a comment form available from our libraries and one
stop shops. It can also be completed online on our website:
www.cornwall.gov.uk/cornwall budget. You can use the form to let
us know:
1. Your views on the draft budget proposals and how they may
affect you.
2. About any new ideas you have on how we can save money.
3. About any ideas you have on how we can save money in areas
we have already proposed.
Our budget consultation will close on 29 October 2014.
All the comments and suggestions we receive from the public and
our partners will be used to produce a revised draft of the budget,
which will be discussed by the Council’s Cabinet on 5 November and
then the full Council will consider the proposed budget on 22
November when it will make a final decision about the budget.
John Pollard, the Leader of the Council and Alex Folkes, the Cabinet
Member for Finance and Resources have said they are determined
to focus on what Cornwall will be like in 2019, rather than what we
need to cut.
John Pollard has said: Budgetary constraints and the changing
nature of Local Government require a different approach and, as we
said last year, we want to build a resilient and sustainable Cornwall
and not simply reduce the services we provide. To this end we have
worked with Councillors, officers and partners to develop this
budget, the Council’s strategy which underpins it, and a Business
Plan which will implement it. Our commitment is to create a leaner,
more resourceful organisation that delivers essential council
services in the most efficient and effective way. This also means
having the courage to make some extremely difficult decisions.
John continued: We have been pressing the Government to change
the way local government is funded to give Cornwall a fairer share
of the money it allocates to councils to provide services. We
currently receive less than half the money per head of population
than that given to Hackney and if we were funded in the same way
as an average urban council we would receive an additional £48
million a year. We are continuing to have discussions with Ministers
over the need to recognise the cost of providing services to people
in Cornwall and have recently sent a submission setting out how we
think the system should be reformed to the Independent
Commission that has been set up to look at this issue.
Alex Folkes has said: Over the past few months we have looked
closely at everything we do to see how we can protect services by
becoming more efficient and changing the way the Council is
run. We started with the money we spend on ourselves and have
already identified more than £30 million of savings through a radical
restructure of senior management, reducing the use of consultants
and agency staff by 59%, and a local pay agreement with
staff. This work is continuing, with further savings due to come
from ongoing restructuring and the sale of surplus buildings, but the
sheer scale of the savings we need to make means we cannot rely
on these actions alone.
Alex continued: We are looking to work much more closely with the
rest of the public sector and the voluntary and community
sector. We will be seeking to integrate our services and to share
support functions and buildings wherever possible. But we know
that front line services will also be hit. We recognise that many
people will be concerned at the impact of some of these proposals
but the stark truth is we cannot protect services and save £196
million by continuing in the same way. Faced with the need to save
£196m from our budget our choice is limited. We have to become
more efficient and change the way we run the Council. By doing
this we can support key services for vulnerable children and adults,
and help people who are struggling to make ends meet by
maintaining council tax support. We will also be supporting the bus
network and continuing to fix potholes and maintain our roads.
More information is available on our website:
www.cornwall.gov.uk/cornwallbudget