The Chief Finance Officer's Assessment of Brent Council's proposed budget asserts that it contains the right mixture of risk and prudence. However he highlights some areas where the risk of under-delivery is more signifcant.
The full list of cuts and savings can be found HERE
In the extract below in italics is the Chief Finance Officer's statement and below an extract from the savings document, I was particularly concerned about the proposals on Public Health (PH3) following the removal of the ring-fence, especially after the report to the Cabinet at their last meeting LINK We need to know exactly what is being cut and what the impact is as well as what needs should be met that may not have been met hithertoo. Brent Council only took on responsibility for the Public Health of Under 5s a few months ago.
There were warnings last year about the deliverability of the changes in the Youth Service and this remains an issue.
Soem of the other proposals seem vague at best.
I am sorry about the problems with the formatting. There are often problems transferring text from PDFs on to this blog.
The full list of cuts and savings can be found HERE
In the extract below in italics is the Chief Finance Officer's statement and below an extract from the savings document, I was particularly concerned about the proposals on Public Health (PH3) following the removal of the ring-fence, especially after the report to the Cabinet at their last meeting LINK We need to know exactly what is being cut and what the impact is as well as what needs should be met that may not have been met hithertoo. Brent Council only took on responsibility for the Public Health of Under 5s a few months ago.
There were warnings last year about the deliverability of the changes in the Youth Service and this remains an issue.
Soem of the other proposals seem vague at best.
I am sorry about the problems with the formatting. There are often problems transferring text from PDFs on to this blog.
a.
Proposal CYP3, which requires
savings of £0.9m from a complex reorganisation of youth services
Reduce management and infrastructure
costs in 2015/16, and establish a new delivery model by 2016.
Savings of £100k include in 2015/16.
b.
Proposal R&G1,which requires a
further reduction in TA costs of £0.5m in 2016/17 and a further £0.5m in
2017/18. This reflects the complex demographic and legislative pressures in
this area.
Savings of
£1.3m were included for 2015/16 based on underspending in 2013/14 and reflecting
the expectation that service demand would be less than anticipated in the
original model . A further £1.0m saving
was included for 2016/17 and 2017/18
c.
R&G25f, which requires a
surplus, over time, of £0.35m p.a. from the Lettings Agency, although none of
this is budgeted for in 2016/17
BHP will be establishing a lettings
agency in 2014. The business plan projects completed additional surpluses
of £350k per annum bein generated from year five (2018/19). The
saving represents increased income from the provision property and
tenancy management services to private sector properties
d.
ACE2, which plans to reduce the
council’s contribution to the London Boroughs Grant Committee by £0.34m in
2017/18, which cannot be achieved without securing a two-thirds majority in
London Councils
Review
of grant funding to London Councils
The
Council cannot withdraw from, or unilaterally reduce its funding to, the Grants
Programme. On the contrary, s.48(7) Local Government Act 1985 provides that a
grants scheme such as this one, once agreed by the majority of the London
borough councils, may be binding upon a dissenting London Borough council in
the absence of its agreement. We have explored the legislative scope for this.
Section 48 of the Local Government Act 1985, which established the London
Councils grant scheme, stipulates that councils can
only vary their contribution to the grant scheme with the agreement of at least
two thirds of London Boroughs. The time available to implement any agreed
change would significantly limit the level of savings achieved in 2015/2016.
The Council could start conversations now with leaders of other councils with a
view to introducing a reduction in funding to London Councils at the end of this
cycle of projects i.e. April 2017.
e.
HR1 & L&P1, which
collectively require further savings of £1.6m in the council’s legal services
and human resources
department.
HR1It
is proposed to carry out a major reconfiguration of the HR service in 2015/16
saving £1.4m by 2016/17. This will result in the merging of some areas in order
to reduce the number of managers required in the new structure. It is the
intention to devolve responsibility for some existing activities undertaken by
the Learning and Development team to HR Managers. Other activities will be
accommodated by a new performance team with a broader remit which will include
resourcing, workforce development, policy and projects. In addition it is
proposed to cap the existing trade union facilties time allocation awarded to
GMB and Unison to a maximium of 1 x PO1 post per trade union, to move the
occupational health service inhouse saving £60k and reduce the learning and
development budget by £67k. In year 2016/17 further reductions in staffing can
be potentially achieved through shared service arrangements within payroll,
pensions, HR management information and recruitment. Savings of £696k included
in 2015/16.
L&P1 Different options of service delivery – outsourcing – private legal firm / buying from local authority that sells legal services and also London Wide work of setting up a shared service. Proposal to enter a shared service for legal. Savings of £400k have been brought forward from future years to 2016/17. Savings of £458k included in 2015/16.
f.
PH3, where savings of £1m against
the public health grant are required
Agreed that efficiencies would be made
within public health once the grant ceased to be ring fenced and
further opportunities sought to use grant to deliver across Council functions
g. R&G32,where savings of £1.5m
are required through implementation of
the customer access strategy.
Implementation of new customer access
strategy with a specific aim to reduce the current costs of contact
handling by migrating custome contact on line, improve the
efficiencies of telephone handling arrangements and optimising use of
shared data to reduce the nee for customers to have to contact
multiple services with the same
information. There is a £1.5m of
savings which will be achieved across the Council and held as a
central saving in 2016/17
