Friday 24 September 2010

Well the news this week has all been about our plans for investment in front line services and cost reduction over the next four years. The Leaders and Chief Executive met the press on Monday for a full series of briefings and then appeared on the television later to give the same messages.

I thought it would be wise for me to use this week’s blog to repeat some of the key headline messages, just in case some of you have missed the press and television this week. If anybody would like to discuss these plans then do please contact me.

We will face a number of challenges over the next four years.

We are currently working on a business plan that sets out how the council will manage the difficult financial challenges that it is facing. Our approach is ambitious and focuses on good robust management.

We believe we can do this as we can take advantage of being a new unitary council. This allows us to maximise our potential and make the most effective use of our resources. We see this as an opportunity to deliver investment and savings at a quicker pace, which will result in a better council and better services for the people of Wiltshire.

The situation we face is unique as the national constraints on funding combined with the fundamental change to public services have not been seen on this scale since the Second World War.

It means we will have a new role and become less of a provider of services and more of a strategic enabling body. This will mean the council will become smaller and employ less people over the next few years.

What are the challenges we face?
Challenge 1 – central government funding cuts
The new coalition government has made it clear that its priority is to reduce the national financial deficit.

It is likely that government grant funding to local councils will be reduced by at least 25% from April 2011 - this figure will be confirmed following the Comprehensive Spending Review announcements on 20 October.

This reduction will result in an estimated deficit in our 4 year budget plan of £122 million, which is 3.6% of our gross budget and 8.8% of our net budget.

Our total gross budget for the next 4 years is £3,416,000,000.

Challenge 2 – investing in priorities over the same time period
We want to improve and invest in some services and protect the most vulnerable in our communities.

We will invest and redirect £170 million over the next 4 years to achieve this. This is 5.0% of our gross budget and 12.2% of our net budget.


We will invest;

• £40m into improving and delivering new services
• Waste and recycling, leisure, new housing, broadband access and school improvements
• £40 million into protecting the vulnerable
• Adults and children’s social care
• Energy efficiency
• The economy

Challenge 3 - how will we do this?

By April next year - 2011 (year 1 of our business plan) we have to save around £40 million.

People management
You may be aware that Corporate and Service Directors have been working on reviewing the number of managers in their structures. The saving of £8 million as highlighted above = approximately 240 managers.

The revised structures will be finalised by the end of September.

Directors will be discussing with their managers the revised structures in October.

In line with this we have been negotiating with the unions on devising a new set of Redundancy policies to reflect the current circumstances.

Jane and Andrew will also be meeting all managers and staff at face to face forums week commencing 4 October to discuss the next four years and what this means to the council and people of Wiltshire.

Service Reviews and Improvements
We will be adopting a “systems thinking” approach to our services to reduce waste, improve services and be more customer focused.

How we purchase goods and services
Be more business like in how we purchase our goods and services to reduce costs and be more efficient. We will identify and deliver cash savings of £9 million per year.

Income generation
Maximise our opportunities to generate income.


Our business plan is about good management…
The move to unitary has provided us with the foundations to deliver an ambitious but realistic plan. The only factor that would have been different is the pace and speed that we have to do it by. The government is driving change and its focus is reducing the national deficit. We have to move quickly to make savings by next April.

Thanks for reading and speak again next week.

Carlton

Friday 17 September

Well I've almost but not quite forgotten my holidays. Just clinging on to the last memories. I spent all of Tuesday in Salisbury, firstly attending the Cabinet meeting at the City Hall and then we also held our Corporate Leadership Team meeting in the city. It was good to meet staff and spend some time with front line services, as well taking a quick look at Bourne Hill. The new offices open next month and I must admit I'm somewhat jealous that I won't be based their permanently.

At CLT we have been working hard on developing the detail in our new Business Plan. You'll remember that this is the plan which will balance our investment in services over the next four years with the projected reduction in income from the government to be announced next month. The leader and chief executive will be briefing the press on Monday with the details and these will be made available to staff earlier on Monday.

Today I attended the Organisation and Resources Scrutiny Select Committee. There were some robust discussions on our HR policies and I led a presentation on the detail of how we will deliver the £36 million we need to save from the procurement of goods and services over the next four years. Scrutiny is a vital part of our business I want to encourage officers to use this forum to develop and shape policy on its way to the formal Cabinet and council decision making body.

The procurement and commissioning programme is now underway. You will have seen details about this on the Electric Wire last week. Please can I encourage you to support the team in this important work for the council.


Thanks for reading and talk again next week.

Carlton

Thursday 9 September

Here we are in September and it feels like a new term. I hope you all enjoyed your holidays. I feel re-energised after the busy year so far. The new term is going to be very busy for us and includes six important pieces of work that we have to deliver before Christmas.

Bourne Hill will be opening next month when we start to move staff into the building. Coupled with the move is significant numbers of staff with work from home capability (already 200+) and all new ICT. I chaired the Programme Board yesterday and we are right on track with this.

The government will announce its Comprehensive Spending Review on October 20. This is when we will find out the size of the government financial cut backs to address the national budget deficit. At this point we should know the amount by which our grant will be reduced so that we can finalise our Business Plan. We are predicting that we will lose 25%.

The Business plan is developing well - with a headline figure for efficiencies to be made of £100 million over the next 4 years. We anticipate that we will need £40 million to meet the government grant reduction, and we want a further £60 million to reinvest in priority services for the people of Wiltshire. We feel that this is a sensible and pragmatic approach to the challenges we face as an organisation. This is the next logical step after Local Government Reorganisation and we are well placed to achieved this.

Part of the Business Plan will be a review and reduction of management costs. The Service Directors and I have almost completed this and we will be reviewing this over the coming weeks with staff affected.

ICT will be in-sourced from Steria by January 1st. The project work leading up to this is intense and the teams are flat out to ensure this is achieved with quality and without affecting system performance and reliability. This is a tough ask.

Finally we will be starting the de-cant of County Hall which is the next phase of the Work Place Transformation programme (WPT). The WPT makes annual savings of £4.5 million so it is an important part of our overall plan to reduce operational costs and to move additional money to front line service areas.

All in all, a very busy term ahead for us as a team.

Thanks for reading and we'll chat again next week.

Carlton