Shropshire Star

Shropshire's essential services no longer safe from cuts as full extent of council's black hole revealed

A further £10 million of savings and a yearly increase in Council Tax will still not be enough to set a budget for next year, it was warned today.

Published

The full extent of Shropshire Council cuts were revealed in a report that opens the way for services previously considered essential to be hit.

To ensure the growing funding gap is closed, the council must find an additional £17 million in savings as part of its financial strategy for the year 2017-18.

Head of finance James Walton warned in his report to today's cabinet meeting that if the authority agreed to increase Council Tax by 3.99 per cent each year and delivered £10 million of identified savings, there would still still be a funding gap of £17.3m.

This is set to grow to £30.4m the following year.

He said: "To enable a legal budget to be set in 2017/18, further savings to those set out in this report will need to be identified, to the value of £17.3m.

"Alternatively, additional resources to this value will need to be generated."

The report recommended members agreed to move forward with green and amber rated savings – green savings will have "minimal impact" while amber are said to be not recommended from a service point of view, but "are considered achievable".

  • Public Health – Shropshire Council has identified an amber-rated saving could be made in public health of about £228,849. It has not yet detailed where the savings could be made but says more information should become available as details on public health grants are decided.

  • Children’s services – A total of £1,157,500 has been identified as green-rated savings, including in areas such as external residential placements for Looked After Children, and delivering services for children with disabilities in different ways. It could also make savings by getting a better value for fostering placements. The savings could see the end of the Educational Psychology team, while budgets are expected to shrink as schools academise. The council is working to mitigate these savings.

  • Adults services – More than £4 million of red-rated savings have been identified in health purchasing and housing support. The savings could come from a range of contracts with voluntary sector organisations that the council says “provide essential preventative services” to support people living and remaining at home, rather than going into higher cost services. It could also come from housing services under two contracts which deliver “early intervention and prevention to support individuals and families”.

  • Commissioning services – A number of savings will be made as Shropshire Council hands over leisure centres, swimming pools and museums to community groups and organisations. A further £2,250,000 will be made in the refuse collection and recycling budget with contract renegotiations and service redesigns while another £100,000 should be saved with efficiency savings for the parks, countryside and rights of way area.

  • Resources and support – More than £2 million could be made in green and amber-rated savings by redesigning service areas for revenues and benefits, as well as income from a New Homes Bonus. Customer services, property services and Shire services could all be redesigned.[/breakout]

These savings would come from children’s services, commissioning services as well as resources and support.

It could include saving thousands from the council's information advice and guidance service for young people, and savings in the foster care service by "achieving best value".

Efficiency savings for parks, countryside and rights of way have also been identified. Further cash would be saved by redesigning services in other areas.

At the meeting today, councillors were also being asked to note that more work must be done to save the remaining £17m.

The report identifies a number of red-rated savings that it says "are high risk, but would need to be delivered to meet the current budget pressure or need an above referendum Council Tax increase to fund".

With all savings delivered – regardless of red, amber or green rating – as well as one-off payments, there would still be a funding gap of more than £1m, growing to £7m the following year.

While councillors were not being asked to agree red-rated savings today, work would need to be carried out to see which areas could be looked at to save money.

Potential savings rated as "high-risk" include areas such as refuse and recycling, budgets for the Post 16 team, which helps young people after leaving secondary education, and the budget for the Special Educational Needs area, including the educational psychology team.

It also includes the plans to reduce leisure and culture budgets to zero, putting the county's libraries, swimming pools and museums at risk of closure.

Mr Walton said: "Proposals to close this gap will be considerably more challenging to deliver than those approved to date, and it is essential that the implications of subsequent service changes are clearly understood before final decisions are made."

To wipe out the £17m funding gap without making any red-rating savings, Mr Walton said it would work out as an equivalent one-off Council Tax increase of as much as 17 per cent. He said: "The financial strategy assumes a 3.99 per cent Council Tax increase in every year going forward.

"This is the limit of increase allowed without going to referendum. If this planning assumption were changed, i.e. reduced, the current funding gap would grow.

"Growth in resources to close the remaining funding gap is being considered, but is unlikely to deliver a solution, certainly in the short term.

"Alternatively, the increase in Council Tax required to close the £17.259 million funding gap in 2017/18 alone would be approximately 17 per cent which would, of course, be above the assumed referendum threshold of 3.99 per cent."

Council leader Malcolm Pate today said he would continue to lobby for extra Government funding, following this week's meeting with minister Greg Clarke.

But he said: "Unless we can find a different way of working, we have to set a legal budget with these savings.

"None of us are very happy about what it says, but we have to find a legal budget.

"We shall do our very best to mitigate the problems for the community.

"None of us want to cut services," he added.

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.