Shared services 'to protect frontline'
Friday October 22, 2010
Radical proposals to look at sharing ‘every major service’ have been announced by three of Britain’s elite councils.
Hammersmith & Fulham, Westminster City Council and Kensington & Chelsea believe that merging services is the only way to try and avoid cuts to frontline services following the toughest public spending squeeze on local government in living-memory.
H&F and Westminster City Council have already started to look at merging education services. Working groups are being set up to look at merging the entire range of children’s services across the three councils, along with environmental services, adult social care and corporate services.
The recommendations from the working groups will be reported in February 2011. At that stage councillors will consider the next steps in consultation with staff and partners.
Local government funding was reduced by 28 per cent – as part of the Government’s plans to reduce Britain’s record budget deficit.
H&F Council leader Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh promised to ‘squeeze every penny and every pound’ by looking at further savings in H&F and beyond in a bid to avoid reducing frontline services.
“We will do everything humanly possible to maintain the services we have,” he said. “However nobody should be under any illusions about the difficulty of the challenge ahead."
In a joint statement, Cllr Greenhalgh, along with Westminster Leader Cllr Colin Barrow and K&C Leader Cllr Merrick Cockell said: “We want to stress though that local priorities will still be driven by local people, and the democratic mandate rested in elected councillors such as ourselves, will be retained.
"Our plans may be the first of their kind, but sharing of services in this way can no longer be viewed as a radical concept. It will soon become the norm for local authorities looking for innovative ways to keep costs down while delivering high quality front line services."
H&F has already saved £55 million in the last four years. Based on current estimates, following last Wednesday’s Comprehensive Spending Review, H&F will need to save a further £65 million, although precise details will not be known until December or January. That will result in around 700 jobs going, although H&F will do everything possible to do this through natural wastage.
In the next financial year H&F is looking to save around £28 million. Detailed proposals on this will emerge in December. However, the Council has already identified that it will save £570,000 in senior management costs. The Council will be paying £800,000 less in debt repayments thanks to the fact the Council’s historic debt of £169 million has been reduced by £36 million. The Council is currently considering proposals to reduce this further by £20 million by selling council buildings that are considered to be poor value for money.
