Further £169m cuts and savings sought at Norfolk CC

[wendy]

A further £169m of cuts and savings are on the cards at Norfolk County Council after bosses said financial pressure means “fundamental change” is needed in how services are provided to people in the county.



And that means every department at County Hall - including adult social services, children’s services and the fire and rescue service - is to be asked to look at ways to reduce its spending by a quarter over the next three years.

It will mean a seismic shift in the way the council works and the authority acknowledges that will mean no longer providing some services.

The council has come up with a strategy called Re-imagining Norfolk as a blueprint for how the authority can stay sustainable in the face of dwindling grants from the government.

Norfolk, which has identified more than £245m in savings since 2011 is not alone, with Suffolk expecting to make £120m of cuts in the next three years and Cambridgeshire in the midst of a five-year £150m savings programme.

The vision for Norfolk is for a public service created by forging alliances with other organisations, such as district councils and voluntary groups to help bring down the costs of providing services.

One example of the possible shake-up is a likely shift away from looking after vulnerable elderly people in care homes and working with voluntary organisations to keep them in their own homes.

Dr Wendy Thomson, managing director of Norfolk County Council, said: “We will still be spending £1bn, which is an immense amount. The exam question for us is how do we spend that in the best way for the people of Norfolk.

“So that could mean not spending £30,000 for an older person to go into residential care, but saying to them ‘we can spend £20,000 and keep you in your own home’.”

Dr Thomson insisted there would be no “scorched earth” policy when it came to savings and said the authority had learned from previous mistakes, where removing preventative services had led to higher costs further down the line.

A report which will go before councillors next week says savings can be made by recommissioning some contracts, redesigning services, encouraging more use of online services and becoming more commercial.

George Nobbs, Labour leader, said: “We are being open and frank from the start of this process about the mountain we have to climb. Despite unprecedented efficiencies, we still find ourselves having to take out more from the council.

“Even with this, we will still be a billion pound organisation and we need to use every penny of that to get the best possible results we can for the people of Norfolk.”

While the prediction is that the council needs to save £111m over three years, the authority wants to identify £169m of possible savings and cuts, so that there is ‘headroom’ to make choices over where the axe falls.

But Conservative group leader Cliff Jordan said the council had left it too late and should never have axed his group’s Enterprising Norfolk strategy, which he said would have saved £200m.

He said: “They have thrown away a strong council for a flip flop weak one. It will take a decade to put right what Labour and UKIP are doing to this county.”

The council says it is too early to say what the changes would mean for the 4,000 plus workforce at the county council. More than 1,500 full-time posts have been shed at the authority since 2010, with a further 1,555 transferred to the likes of arms-length company NorseCare and social enterprise Independence Matters.

The strategy will be discussed by the council’s policy and resources committee on Monday, after which committees will be tasked with coming up with possible savings. The council said it will also talk to the public about possible changes.
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