Further savings targets to be discussed by councillors

More details about the council’s savings targets are being discussed by councillors following the Government funding settlement announcement just before Christmas 2012. 

Finance officers are still working through the fine detail of the settlement, but the overall impact on the council’s financial projections does not look to be any worse than was expected. 

The result of the settlement was a 1.1% reduction in Shropshire Council’s ‘spending power’, which was a £2.69 million loss. 

The spending power calculation was made up of various grants, including the council tax freeze grant, which finance officers had accounted for and already included in the council’s savings plans. 

The council has put plans in place to save around £85 million over four years, including reductions of £38 million which had been made by March 2012.  Shropshire Councillors have also already agreed a raft of savings totalling about £20 million in the current financial year, and almost £21 million in 2013/14. 

The report being considered by Cabinet on Wednesday 16 January 2013 outlines the progress being made, and highlights details of how the remaining £8.9 million of the £21 million to be saved in 2013/14 is to be shaved from the budget. 

Proposed savings involve reducing spending across a range of service areas, including savings made from renegotiating contracts, ongoing staff restructuring and efficiency savings across the council. 

The proposals are set out in Appendix 3 of the report which can be viewed here.    

Leader of the Council, Keith Barrow, said:

“It looks like the Government funding settlement hasn’t hit us any harder than we expected, but we are still having to make huge savings to balance the books.  We are making savings wherever we can to avoid cutting essential frontline services, and the proposals in this report will allow us to hit our targets without causing a major impact on services. 

“We are in a better position than many other councils, because we are getting on with things and looking to do things differently rather than cutting services.  The establishment of a new council-owned company, ip&e, to provide services at a public profit which can then be invested back into the council is just one of the ways we will do this.”