Facing tough decisions

It was Abraham Lincoln who famously said: “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” These words ring true for me today.

In my last blog I talked about the challenges and the opportunities that we face over the coming year, but now, as we prepare to set our budget next month, this is a real area of focus.

As you know, we currently spend around £900 million each year on more than 350 services. 

Changing demographics, such as people living longer (fortunately!) coupled with inflation and the cuts in funding from central government means we have to find more savings.

 I consider it my responsibility to spell out the facts of what this means. Last year we received £119m from the Government – this year we will get £103.8m. This cut of more than £15m, combined with the rise in demand for some of our key front line services and inflation costs, means we need to find a further £30m of savings this coming financial year.

That’s a tall order – but we’re getting used to those! Last year we saved £25.5m by reviewing all our services and looking at what we could deliver more efficiently and by sharing resources.

Let’s be clear - we remain absolutely committed to our three main priorities – to protect those who are most vulnerable in our communities, to boost the local economy; creating new jobs and safeguarding existing jobs, and to support and empower communities to do more for themselves – making them stronger, more resilient and able to cope with the pressures and problems that they face.

And we’ll continue to invest in the areas that we know matter to our residents, and into projects that will save money in the future.

£84m will be spent on resurfacing roads for the next two years, along with £33m on road maintenance including potholes.

£65m is being invested in providing infrastructure and jobs to keep the economy in Wiltshire buoyant. This includes building a new Science Park in Porton, dualling the A350 at Chippenham and a major refurbishment of the town’s railway station.

We all know that we need more affordable homes and we will be investing £45m to provide new homes, extra care and sheltered housing and £46m will be spent on improving council housing.

We have also allocated £66m to provide community campuses and hubs across the county. These new campuses will rationalise a range of buildings (often scattered across a community area in various states of disrepair) into a location that is more accessible, can be ran more efficiently and will save money, as well as providing local communities with the range of services, facilities and activities that they need and want.

Both national and local media have well publicised the ‘cut-backs’ and the pressures facing public services and the health service has hardly been out of the news for the past two weeks. The cuts are real – and so is the growing demand for the services that we provide.

We know we have more older people living for longer in Wiltshire (currently 15% higher number than the rest of the country) and this places huge demand on our social care and health services. And, we also know that more children need safeguarding and more are in need of our support and care.

These key services don’t have a cut-off or ceiling on spend or numbers.

We also have a growing number of households (2,000 each year) – which means there’s more demand for services, such as waste and recycling collections.

Wiltshire Council was formed almost 6 years ago and in this time we have seen major change. I know these changes have impacted on all of you. We need your ideas and thoughts on how we can continue to do things differently and be more innovative in our approach. I would like to thank you all for your support and overwhelming commitment to do what’s best for the people of Wiltshire. This has helped us to deliver excellent services to residents in difficult and challenges times.

The savings we need to find; both this coming year and beyond means that tough choices have to be made. We need to ask questions about whether there are ways we could do things better – or whether we should be doing them at all.

Starting today (Monday 26 January), we will be holding a series of public meetings so we can talk to residents directly about the challenges we face, and we’ll be asking for their views.

So far, as part of looking at next year’s budget, we have identified more than 100 areas where we are proposing to find savings. These include:

•      Charging for garden waste collections

•      Finding office efficiencies in support services

•      Encouraging efficiencies in voluntary sector services

•      Changing street lighting times

•      Reviewing the Household Recycling Centres opening times

I’ve no doubt that some of these proposals will be covered in the local media over the next few weeks, before council decides its budget for next year. But it’s not about ‘cut-backs’. As I said in my last column, the key to making sustained savings will be through innovation. We have got to continue to be smart. We need to continue to find ways and new opportunities to do more for less. I know it’s a big ask.

Perhaps there is some reassurance in Abraham Lincoln’s words that: “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”

Jane