The leader of Wandsworth Council has warned of “difficult times ahead” after tough measures to slash millions from the budget were approved.

Last Thursday, during a meeting of the finance overview and scrutiny committee, the council approved plans to cut its budget by an extra £43m by 2015, merging four departments into two and cutting 55 jobs.

But despite the black clouds on the financial horizon and the “immense” challenge ahead, Councillor Ravi Govindia believes the council is well-equipped to deal with any future problems.

He said: “Every town hall in Britain is having to play its role in reducing the nation’s debt.

“We will do this by cutting down on back office costs, selling off vacant buildings, market testing services, reducing the number of high-paid managers and looking at intelligent new ways of generating extra income.

“We have consistently managed to make savings and staff reductions in the past without impacting on service standards.

“Every department will be scrutinised.”

The drastic need for further savings has been caused by a sharp reduction in the grant from central Government, and could cause a significant increase in council tax in the future.

Coun Govindia said: “Wandsworth has always been reliant on government grants because of our low council tax so the impact on us is often greater when it is reduced.

“Thursday’s papers indicate there may come a time when we will have to contemplate significant council tax increases in order to balance budgets.”

Another strategy to reduce the budget is creating staff mutuals, which allow staff to use their expertise to form their own companies promoting income generating ideas and encouraging efficiencies.

Coun Govindia added: “The Government was really keen for us to look at the model as a way of providing public services at arms length from local authorities, freeing up staff to effectively form a not-for-profit company that will provide services, be their own bosses.

“An example is our library services, provided by Greenwich Leisure, a staff mutual that grew out of Greenwich’s own library service.”

The plans agreed on Thursday will see children’s and adult’s services departments merged, with housing and environment and community services also becoming a single department.

The move has left other departments fearing the axe may be coming their way.

Finally, when questioned about the reduction in council meetings and papers, another money-saving exercise, Coun Govindia threw down the gauntlet to councillors concerned about a “watering down of scrutiny”.

He said: “Councillors workload will be increased in many respects. They will have to take a much greater and deeper interest in the way the department is run.

“They are going to have to work a lot harder.”

A final budget will be published in February next year.

 

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