Council – ‘difficult decisions’ ahead

The leader of South Holland District Council says there will be an effect on services due to the ‘difficult decisions’ it will have to make on savings.

The authority is facing a £353,000 overspend based on its performance from April to June.
Coun Paul Redgate told a special meeting of its Cabinet that the reason behind it was homelessness costs, ‘some small service overspends’ and work still being carried out on the £331,000 savings the council had identified it needed to make as part of the budget.
It’s despite an unexpected increase in investments of £315,000.
Leader Coun Nick Worth said: “It’s going to be a challenging time, not just for our council but those across the country.
“The importance of financial management is really important going forward.
“We’re going to have to make some difficult decisions as the budget progresses because it’s going to be quite a transformation in our services to be able to make those sort of savings.
“There’s going to be some challenges there, I’m sure.”
Coun Paul Redgate urged councillors to continue to look for savings.
“If this situation is not addressed there will be a further impact on our general fund reserves,” he said. “We will need to work harder over the coming months with services to work on efficiency and innovations.
“We need to find better ways of responsive working.
“We need to look at the culture of the council.
“It’s not just making cuts its about looking to do things smarter.
“There’s lots of councils in worse positions, but we need to make sure we don’t fall into that trap.
“We’ve got an opportunity here to look at doing things better.”
Coun Tracey Carter, whose remit includes overseeing homelessness, said she was ‘very confident’ the department would decrease costs.
“They’re doing much better. We had staff retention issues and a reliance on agency staff.
“We’ve now got new roles created, three properties coming through which is going to make a big impact and the number of people in B&Bs is in a dramatically better place because of the new ways of working and being fully staffed up.”
Coun Worth also vowed the council would continue to lobby for better funding for those authorities with drainage board costs.
The reason for the special meeting was due to the report, which covers April to July being submitted late to the cabinet.
“I made it very clear that since I became leader there would be nothing submitted late that wouldn’t give time for members to read them,” he said. “All they have to do is get the reports a couple of weeks before the cabinet meeting.”
Independent councillor Bryan Alcock, who was invited to scrutinise the paper, backed the move.
“It’s not good practice in a time for difficult financial circumstances to be considering figures relating to a period that ended in June at the end of September.
“It would be better if managers had access to this information very early.
“Based with what we know, in the next few years its going to be extremely difficult.”
Coun Redgate apologies for the lateness of the report and said it was due to ‘resource challenges’ in PSPS, the council’s arm’s length company that deals with administration work.