Services face more cuts, warns Shropshire Council chief

In an email to Shropshire's 74 councillors, Clive Wright, the authority's chief executive, highlights a Local Government Association report that says services other than social care and waste collection face being reduced or stopped from this year onwards.

In 2014 Shropshire Council agreed £80 million cuts over the next three years, which came on top of £87 million of savings since 2009. But council leader Keith Barrow warned earlier this year of another £40 million in cuts by the end of 2015.

Alan Mosley, Shropshire councillor for Castlefields and Ditherington in Shrewsbury, and leader of the Labour group, said public services such as recreation, libraries, roads and sports facilities were facing a dire outlook.

He said: "It is disgusting what lies in store for vital services like recreation, like libraries, like roads and sports facilities."

He said if councillors accepted that waste, children's services and adult care could not be cut then there would be little money left for other services.

Mr Wright emailed councillors after the release of the Local Government Association report on the future funding for local authorities, urging them to consider its contents.

He warned that from 2015 onwards "local government will have to stop and/or reduce delivering some services, particularly those services that are not social care and waste collection.

"Further efficiencies and redesign of services alone will not achieve a balanced budget in the lead up to the year 2020."

The report paints a bleak picture for the funding of public services, with Mr Wright speculating it could be even worse than indicated.

He told the Shropshire Star: "It is clear that local government is changing across the whole of the UK.

"In Shropshire we have anticipated this and we have been planning our response for some time. We have been looking at what councils might look like five to ten years into the future, working with our public sector partners, the private sector and the voluntary and community sector.

"It is important that we develop the council towards this future. Taking care of vulnerable people and developing our economy will continue to be our priorities.

"Just about every local authority in the UK is looking at how outcomes for people can be improved whilst reducing costs and Shropshire is at the cutting edge of this. We have made a great start already, for example with our adult services where we have the lowest cost services in the UK, whilst also having the highest quality.

"Our company ip&e offers services to other councils and organisations to help them make the same step change improvements.

"The agenda of the emerging new government is clearly one of changing the relationship between individuals and the state. This will bring greater self-reliance and more interdependence between individuals and their communities. Council services will change and adapt to support this agenda and some services will be adapted or be delivered by communities themselves.

"Over the next few months Shropshire Council will openly engage with communities to understand what their priorities are and therefore how we should raise and manage our finances.

"This is a 'big conversation'."

He added: "There are also significant structural changes to local government, with the Government devolving power and responsibilities to councils who combine. This is aimed at growing the economy, removing the productivity gap that exists in the UK and creating large scale wealth-generating areas outside of London. "

Although Shropshire Council was in dialogue with other authorities, he said it was too early to say how this would develop.