There have been many headlines recently about the fears among County and Unitary Councils that because of the severe reduction in government funding, cuts they are going to have to make in 2019-2020 will mean that essential services will have to go.
Now Wiltshire Council’s Cabinet has been told (September 25) by Councillor Philip Whitehead that the savings they planned for the current financial year may not all be made. This could leave the Council with a £5.6million deficit at the end of March 2019.
Wiltshire Lib Dems are warning that the Council is heading for a financial crisis. Councillor Ian Thorn is Liberal Democrats Leader of the Opposition on Wiltshire Council: “We challenged the Conservative leadership on their cutting £26m from this year’s Council budget.”
“They said they were ’95 per cent’ certain they could do it even though it is the largest budget cut the Council has ever made. Now they are admitting to a current budget ‘black hole’ for this year of £5.6m.”
“Nationally the Conservatives are hitting Council’s hard. Now we are seeing that impact in Wiltshire. With low cash reserves, there is a real danger that Council services will be hit even harder.”
The paper presented to Wiltshire Council’s Cabinet shows that less than 60 per cent of planned savings are being delivered – £15.6m out of a planned £26.7m in cuts.
£7,805,000 of these proposed savings are now marked in red as ‘unlikely to be delivered’. A further £3,330,000 can only be delivered ‘with risks’.
However the Council has proposed some alternative savings – of £2,187,000 – to reduce the likely deficit.
The 2018-2019 adult care budgets are forecast to be overspent by £3,951,000.
Another area of major concern is Waste and Environment which is projecting a budget overspend of £3,786,000. This is in part due to the problems the new contractor has had in getting planning permission for a new facility to sort dry recyclable materials.
Michael Hudson, the Council’s director of finances, left the Council last Spring to take up a similar appointment in Worcestershire. The department is currently under an Interim Director, Ian Duncan.
This month the post of Director of Finance and Procurement has again been advertised – with a salary of ‘circa £120,000’. The closing date is 4 October 2018.