November 6: How will KCC face up to budget challenge?
RUMOURS are gathering that KCC is facing
what is diplomatically being termed a “challenging” budget next
year and I hear that in order to balance the books, some fairly
radical but necessarily painful pruning is in the offing.
The scale of savings needed is said to be tens
of millions of pounds just in this financial year alone. While a
substantial sum – a figure I’ve heard is £48million - is understood
to have already been identified in what are euphemistically termed
“efficiency savings” there remains a £10million
gap that still needs to be plugged and will be the subject of
debate over the coming weeks.
My sources say that while the bulk of savings
have been achieved without impacting on frontline services, it is
less clear whether this will be possible when departments
start trawling for ways of saving a further £10million.
Potentially significant job losses are
also in the pipeline, spread over three years although many of
these may come from what is termed "natural wastage" rather than
compulsory redundancies.
In one sense, none of this can be seen as a
surprise given the general economic climate and the
much-anticipated squeeze on public spending.
KCC, like all councils, is having to deal with
the challenge of increased demand for its services – and the burden
of providing new services not always fully funded by Government -
at a time when its costs are rising, it is making less from the
sale of assets and central Government is likely to pare budgets to
the bone.
For County Hall, there is the added problem of
its on-going dispute with central Government over millions of
pounds owed in asylum grants.
More detail will be fleshed out over the
coming weeks as the authority's key spending departments
wrestle with their individual budgets.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A long-awaited report
into Kent TV is finally out. Commissioned by
consultancy CapGemini, the 34-page report will be
discussed by county councillors at a meeting of the
authority's backbench Corporate Policy Overview Committee.
However, the committee will not be able to
articulate a view about whether Kent TV should continue after
its contract finishes in March next year and will have to confine
its thoughts to the contents of the review, which you can see
here.
It's not that much of a surprise to see that the general tone is
positive and optimistic (KCC leader Paul Carter has already said it
would be) and it steers clear of any comment about the financial
subsidies that KCC has provided.
Its most critical comments are reserved for the governing body
of Kent TV - although not of members but the lack of clarity about
what it is supposed to be doing.
I gather that a final decision on what KCC will do with Kent TV
is due to be made by the cabinet later this month.
Friday, November 06 2009