Birmingham City Council's total debt is due to reach £2.38 billion next year. You might that that under those circumstances taking action to balance the budget so the debt doesn't rise any further and also to look at the sale of surplus assets to reduce the debt (and the huge interest bill that goes with […]
Cherwell District Council and South Northamptonshire Council have finalised a draft business case to consider the financial benefits of sharing a senior management team. Over the last three months a JointWorking Group, with representatives from both councils, has considered establishing a single team who could work for, and manage teams across, both Councils. The remit […]
The Conservative/Lib Dem coalition has achieved a balanced budget – on Newport City Council. The return to economic reality has been acknowldged in a report for the Wales Audit Office. Changing its school catering service has achieved an £800,000 saving for Newport . Also travel and subsistence rates have been reduced to yield savings of […]
Glyn Gaskarth finds a new measure interesting but queries the methodology Experian (an information services company) has ranked all the local authority areas in England according to their ‘resilience’ to planned public service cuts. The rankings are available here. Conservatives should be ready for opponents to use such research to attack the coalition Governments deficit […]
David Wedge and Colin Hilton help councils control their budgets. Here they explain how. The economic climate in recent times has been the cause of considerable pain in both private and public sector. Ill judged action to reduce budgets can damage the quality of products, services and an organisation’s reputation. This article examines emerging thinking […]
Birmingham City Council, run by a Con/Lib Dem joint administration, is a huge council. The Council has a budget of over £3.56 billion If you include schools.) It employs 50,000 staff and has written to 26,000 outlining plans to change their terms and conditions. Basic pay will not be cut but perks such as free […]
The joint Conservative/Lib Dem administration running Wolverhampton City Council seems to have collapsed. This follows a Lib Dem councillor, Cllr Claire Darke, resigning as Cabinet Member for Schools. At present there is still a minority Conservative administration. There are 25 Conservatives, 30 Labour councillors and five Lib Dems. There is a Lib Dem Mayor. So […]
Last year the Conservatives gained Somerset County Council from the Lib Dems. Unfortunately the legacy included £350 million of debt scheduled to rise to £400 million. But some radical measures are being brought forward to save money. Rather than close libraries they are looking to keep them going run by volunteers. To help cut debt […]
Dominique Lazanski says ring fenced funding causes money to be wasted – for instance with huge spending on websites Medway Council has spent nearly £250,000 on a new website, it has been reported. The new council website is set to launch in November and the council hopes that use of the website will facilitate easier and […]
East Lothian Council has a joint Lib Dem/SNP administration. They appear to have enough spare money to sponsor a horse race. This link to Sporting Life offers the results of the 15.40 East Lothan Council Handicap at Musselburgh yesterday. I will email the Council to ask how much this sponsorship cost and what corporate hospitality was […]
New research from management consultants Knox D’Arcy reveals that local government substantially lags the private sector in how efficiently its staff are utilised, indicating the potential for big cost savings without frontline services needing to be cut. The research, which included the detailed shadowing and minute-by-minute recording of the activity of managers in the private […]
Stephen Byfield warns new rules will prompt councils to employ their own lobbyists – with less transparency than using the private sector Full transparency is the order of the day, so let me confess all before I start. I am a lobbyist. I run PPS, one of the companies named as having lobbying contracts with […]
Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, today announced plans to increase transparency and stop the growing practice of local authorities hiring lobbyists to push for more regulation, more state intervention and more ‘pork barrel’ funding. This follows on from the plans for tougher rules to stop councils using taxpayer-funded town hall newspapers to shut down commercial independent […]
Labour-run Tameside Council bosses spent more than £36,000 on a computer game – but have now abandoned it after accepting it was a waste of money. It was supposed to enncourage use of Council services. Cllr John Bell, Conservative opposition leader, says: “They want to get in the real world, not a virtual one. It's […]
Glyn Gaskarth suspects councils may resort to keeping quiet about citizen entitlements - better too focus on those in need If councils don't inform citizens what services they are entitled to receive then the public are unlikely to access these services. Some cash strapped councils may be tempted to cut back on efforts to increase public […]