THE rising cost of emptying bins and adult social care are among mounting pressures forcing the council to make more multi-million-pound cuts, redundancies and another rise in council tax.
Council leader Sir Steve Houghton told the Chronicle this week that £4.5m would need to be saved from the council’s budget during the coming financial year, and a further £6m was expected the year after.
Those figures are based on an assumption that council tax increases by a similar level to this year, when it increased by a total of 3.9 per cent - made up of 1.9 per cent to the basic figure, with an additional 2.0 per cent levy added specifically to meet the growing cost of adult social care, but Sir Steve stressed no decisions had yet been made.
“We’re heading into the second year of a three year plan,” he said. “Over the coming two years we’re looking at taking out another £10.5m, which comes on top of the £100m we’ve already taken out since 2010.”
Only 18 redundancies are expected as part of this round of cuts, although 106 redundancy notices are to be issued as part of the process to identify which jobs are to go.
“We’re hoping it might not be as many as 18 if we can find other savings,” he said.
“We’re looking at ways we can maximise efficiency savings, maximise income, and we’re reviewing our buildings.
“We’re encouraging more and more people to access council services online. I think we’re at 43 per cent now, and all of that saves money and helps protect front line services.
“Planning fees will be going up, and we’re looking at some restructuring of staff.
“What we are hoping is we can get through this year without having to make any very significant cuts to services. But the year after starts to look very difficult.”
Council tax only accounts for only about 15 per cent of the £560m the council spends. In recent years the council has faced significant reductions in the amount of funding it receives from central government.
But Sir Steve said about half of the £4.5m budget gap the council needed to close for the coming year was due to the rising costs of just three core areas the council spends money on - bins, adult social care, and children’s social care.
“This year the costs of waste management services have gone up by £820,000 within the year. That’s partly due to the falling demand and falling price of the recyclable material - paper, glass, plastic, the market has fallen out of that.
“It’s also due to the increased costs of disposal. So that remains a significant challenge.
“The costs of adult social care have also gone up by £800,000, and the costs of children’s social care have gone up more than £300,000, so with those three areas that’s almost £2m extra we need to find, so that’s almost half the reason why we need to make a £4.5m saving next year.
“We have to find it, there’s no choice, so it means more cuts, more council tax, or what’s most likely is a mixture of both.”
Budget proposals will go before the council’s ruling cabinet in February and will then go to a vote of all 63 councillors in March.
