Dorset County Council cuts: Secret report reveals £30m target

10:00am Tuesday 13th July 2010 in News By Martin Lea

Chief executive David Jenkins Chief executive David Jenkins

LIBRARIES and youth clubs could close, hours of recycling centres may be shortened and street lights could be turned off while hundreds of jobs face the axe in some of the most savage Dorset County Council cutbacks for years to save a minimum of £30million.

With predicted funding cuts to the authority of between £27million and £40million over the next few years in the coalition government’s age of austerity, bosses at County Hall have begun a radical belt-tightening exercise which is likely to have far-reaching implications for communities.

A confidential document passed to the Dorset Echo outlines the first phase of the work and lists savings opportunities which council chiefs admit will be ‘unpalatable’.

Areas under review include highways and transport, the library service, streetlights, the youth service, household recycling centres and income from country parks.

Officers will also look at saving money on all areas of administration, publications, communications, and document storage as well as reducing the overall number of council buildings.

By implementing the cuts, the council is trying to avoid having a major impact on frontline services but it is warned that job cuts will be ‘inevitable’. In a further blow, councillors have been told that £30million may be only the beginning.

Dorset County Council employs around 16,000 full and part-time staff people including school workers.

Unions are preparing for intense negotiations in order to head off massive redundancies. No figures on job cuts have been mentioned but unions believe it will be at least ‘hundreds’.

They are also concerned about changes to the redundancy policy which would see the multiplier reduced so employees would be paid 1.25 weeks for every year they have worked – down from 2.5.

Unions are planning a Support the Public Sector rally at the Corn Exchange in Dorchester in October in response to government cuts.

Dorset County Council hopes to shed jobs through ‘natural wastage’ and voluntary redundancies before forcing people out.

Chief executive David Jenkins and senior managers will be carrying out detailed work on the proposed cuts over the summer before final decisions are taken in October.

In a confidential report to councillors, Mr Jenkins says the current forecast of the budget gap between 2011/12 and 2013/14 is between £27million and £40million – around 10-15 per cent of the council’s budget.

The Meeting Our Future Challenges Review referred to in the confidential report has identified potential savings of £30,039,275 which falls short of the £40million upper target of 15 per cent.

In a grim warning for councillors, Mr Jenkins says in the report: “The scale of the challenge means that the council will need to cut out activities that are non-critical even though they may be desirable.

“The new period of austerity is a real opportunity for the council to reshape its approach to service delivery. All non-critical work must be faced with the challenge of stopping it.”

Mr Jenkins, who received £200,000 last year in pay, pensions and benefits, says most of the savings in the report can be made by delivering a service at a lower cost but ‘inevitably’ some services will be cut.

He adds: “Most of these are inevitably contentious, for example closure of public libraries, reconfiguration of day care or reduction in the opening hours of household waste sites.”

The council says it has been preparing for budget reductions before the Chancellor George Osborne announced spending cuts across the public sector.

The cuts are announced just as Dorset County Council comes to the end of its three-year Fit for the Future efficiency programme which saved £18million.

Council leader Angus Campbell said the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review will squeeze the authority much harder. He said it would be a question in the future of ‘doing more with less’.

He said: “We will be looking at all areas of the council for savings. The challenge is to minimise the impact on service delivery.”

Coun Campbell said the council should be judged on its record as an employer.

He added: “It is inevitable that the savings required will mean a reduction in posts and staff employed.

“Our staff play a vital role in delivering services and we are committed to supporting them through the changes.”

A meeting of all councillors will debate budget reductions on Thursday July 22. The council’s cabinet will consider recommendations for savings on Friday, July 30.

Comments(29)

Phaedrus says...
10:30am Tue 13 Jul 10

Some cuts are inevitable in the current circumstances. I just hope the bosses at County Hall are not going to be immune.

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wyke resident says...
10:33am Tue 13 Jul 10

At last the man who is responsible for this traffic chaos in Weymouth. You would hope that a man who is on £200k a year, that's £540 a day, could have organized the work to take place in the winter!

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585 says...
10:36am Tue 13 Jul 10

A cut of any of the bosses at the top would mean that he/she wouldn't need a secretary plus PA plus other members of his/hers immediate staff which could give even greater savings.

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Tru belle says...
10:51am Tue 13 Jul 10

And the expensive call centre? Tch tch tch.

Forgot about outside consultants too, and---?

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echorubbish says...
11:05am Tue 13 Jul 10

I agree that library provision could be reduced and more use of mobile libraries to cover closures but only major libraries such as Weymouth should remain, as for switching off street lights I think that would be a very desperate measure that would prove to be a mistake in residential areas as the crime rate would soar. Money could also be saved by realigning our boundaries so that everything this side of the Ridgeway is W & P.B.C we need to look at the bigger picture for savings rather than just tinkering with things like parking charges. Or better still scrap W & P.B.C and Portland Town Council altogether and have a unitary authority for the whole area.

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pd7 says...
11:10am Tue 13 Jul 10

It seems the amount they are trying to save is very similar to the amount that THEY lost in bad investments in Iceland banks.

Or is this money just written off now , with a quick "oh dear" ... Sorry.

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jillswinburn says...
11:39am Tue 13 Jul 10

A reduction in street lighting should be welcomed. There is no evidence to support the theory that crime rates increase where street lighting is reduced. A switching off between the hours of midnight and dawn would save millions of pounds of wasted energy.

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Micke12 says...
11:40am Tue 13 Jul 10

£200,000 a year, £540 per day, or £67 per hour or £1.25 per minute. When the average Dorset working person earns about £50 per day or 77pence per minute, just think of the savings that could be made if all these bigwigs that sit on their fat backsides all day took say a 50% pay cut. If you are getting £100,000 per year, £1,923 per week, £274 per day or £34 per hour then your life is way too extravagant. Most of us would love to earn just £300 per week, let alone £3,846. Cut the high management and executives pay structures by 50% and you could cut the worry of the Government Spending Review cuts quite substantially. It is sad that these days council executives and managers think the job is there to make them money. They are servants to the community and therefore should not ever be paid these large sums. And I bet that when the redundancies come, it will not be these idiots that get the boot, just the lowly minions that really do the work that keeps the streets clean and do such a hard job for so little reward. Have you ever noticed that when cuts in services happen in times of austerity, the top brass never suffer, in fact they prosper as they get pay rises year on year whilst we all take real-term pay cuts. I understand that the Government is trying to get us out of this black hole that the previous administration dropped us intyo, but this Administration needs to make sure that the cuts go right across the board in every,m and i mean every, location that cuts could be made, and that includes council executives and managers. I challenge the council to pass to the echo ,details of what all their top people get paid per year and to divulge how much could be saved on the budget if those people were to have their wages cut by 50% for say the next 5 years of this government, but no, they won't do that as it would show what we all know, and that is that the council tax payer is and always will pay for these 'suits' to have the life of Reilly whislt us mere mortals take the hit as usual.

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Micke12 says...
11:43am Tue 13 Jul 10

sorry about the spelling mistakes.

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maximan says...
11:43am Tue 13 Jul 10

Any cuts inevitably bring hardship to certain individuals that do not deserve it. Those unfortunate to be in the firing line would then have to be supported by some form of social support, which will obviously just come from a different division of public service funds. Not really understanding why people would really believe this is progress

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K9 says...
11:47am Tue 13 Jul 10

Street lights should be turned off. There's only so many potential burglars out there so crime can't soar, and most burglaries occur during the day when people are out of the house.

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banknote says...
11:48am Tue 13 Jul 10

Perhaps the head of the Highways Department should pay for the mistakes made over the last two/three years??

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spangler says...
12:10pm Tue 13 Jul 10

"Micke12, Weymouth says... I challenge the council to pass to the echo ,details of what all their top people get paid per year"
.
For 2 mins of your time you could just look it up yourself on the Dorset for You website:
.
David Jenkins: Chief Executive
Salary Band: £145,235 - £164,306. Salary at 1 April 2010: £164,306. Lease car allowance: £4,500. Medical allowances: £1397.76
.
Elaine Taylor: Corporate Resources Director and Deputy Chief Executive
Salary Band: £114,901 - £129,976. Salary at 1 April 2010: £129,976. Lease car allowance: £4,500. Medical allowances: £1246.80
.
John Nash: Children's Services
Salary Band: £113,930 - £128,293. Salary at 1 April 2010: £119,675. Lease car allowance: £0. Medical allowances: £0
.
Miles Butler: Environment Director
Salary Band: £109,430 - £123,793. Salary at 1 April 2010: £123,793. Lease car allowance: £4,500. Medical allowances: £1246.80
.
Debbie Ward: Adult and Community Services Director
Salary Band: £113,930 - £128,293. Salary at 1 April 2010: £119,675. Lease car allowance: £0. Medical allowances: £0

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Dorset Boy says...
2:29pm Tue 13 Jul 10

How about starting at the top with the cuts. Cut the amount of managers, cut Councillors allowances. Get rid of the so called experts on highway design and traffic management. Why is it always the front line that suffers? Instead of wasting money on 'so called intelligent traffic lights, spend the money on highway repairs. The roads in Dorset are a disgrace. to prove a point, just drive to any boundary around Dorset and see the improvement in road surfaces as soon as you drive over the boundary.

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bigfatzero says...
7:08pm Tue 13 Jul 10

Micke12. Very good points made there sir. Sadly your good ideas are not going to happen. The useless lot at the top are the ones who will be making the decisions about what cuts to be made. They will make things easy for themselves obviously. They could have so easily have saved the money they needed to by not wasting all that money on lame IT projects that don't work and probably wont. It will be interesting to see the comments pages here once they stop doing the necessary road works on our shambolic roads ( not more whining about businesses being affected etc) and when basic necessary services are cut to the bone or stopped altogether. Then things will seriously kick off. Let's hope that the higher management are the ones who get it in the neck from the public directly....

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585 says...
7:25pm Tue 13 Jul 10

Dorset Boy, Wilds of Dorset said 'just drive to any boundary around Dorset and see the improvement in road surfaces as soon as you drive over the boundary'.
The exception perhaps being where the A37 goes from a wide road at the northern Dorset end to the cart track in Somerset before Yeovil.
Probably because Somerset doesn't want tourists and others discovering Dorset?

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CozIsaid says...
7:42pm Tue 13 Jul 10

Another Government saving would be to cut the amount of MP's there are about 700 here and close to 500 in Congress over there - and yet the population in the USA is 10 x more than here.
The mind boggles....... Off topic I know.
Great idea to cut the street lights

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pine50 says...
8:00pm Tue 13 Jul 10

16 Million pounds spent on a new computer system that still doesn't work properly and takes the staff that use it twice as long to get things done, so that agency staff have to be brought in to help with back logs! Now job losses in the pipeline? It's always the lowest on the ladder that take the brunt of huge mistakes and redundancies.

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iiiMillennio says...
9:07pm Tue 13 Jul 10

Pay cuts all round, chief exec and leadership team salaries capped at £70k; a better assessment at which schemes have delivered the biggest impact for the poorest in the county - prioritise those to remain. Make county councillors work harder and abolish the WPBC/Portland bodies. Surcharge councillors for lost Iceland revenues (why no insurance to cover the loss?)

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bigfatzero says...
9:21pm Tue 13 Jul 10

iiimillennio. Fair points there but as for councillors being surcharged for the iceland losses that just is not going to happen. They will be the last to suffer in all this.

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iiiMillennio says...
10:00pm Tue 13 Jul 10

Well you're propbably right but it seems to be mal-governance of county resources if there is no indemnity to cover losses of this magnitude. Who should be held accountable for selecting Iceland without proper protections in place?

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daddykingcool says...
10:23pm Tue 13 Jul 10

I'm happy for services to be cut that I don't get time to use due to being busy working / paying taxes for all the scroungers. Cut benifits, make eveyone re-apply - too many not wanting to work - do people still use the library with Google?

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weymouthfox says...
11:11pm Tue 13 Jul 10

Lets start by making Mr Jenkins redundant, an instant saving of £200000. Then the clowns who have overseen the Weymouth roads chaos. There must be lots of scope for many cuts at County Hall and what a good idea to charge staff for parking.

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Scolopax says...
6:24am Wed 14 Jul 10

So you've sacked all the managers, that's about £750,000 saved and no-one to run the county, now where's the remaining £29.25m saving coming from?
Can't you people stop petty sniping and make some intelligent suggestions.

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iiiMillennio says...
7:09am Wed 14 Jul 10

Scolopax wrote:
So you've sacked all the managers, that's about £750,000 saved and no-one to run the county, now where's the remaining £29.25m saving coming from? Can't you people stop petty sniping and make some intelligent suggestions.
Pay cuts on a bloated public sector, protecting services benefiting the poorest, reducing the number of authorities and multiple layers of local government, cutting out programmes that have failed to deliver are all sensible suggestions. Do find it odd that senior managers are earning more than government ministers. Civil servant pay bands are well out of order and need trimming back too. All evidence of Labour excess, especially over the past decade.

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Tru belle says...
8:31am Wed 14 Jul 10

How much has the pathetic Purbeck schools review/consultation cost?

How much has the QE school (Wimborne)extension,
- financial over run cost?

Dare we question John Nash and co?

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Peter Baylis says...
10:35am Wed 14 Jul 10

Suggestions of cutting street lighting at the same as announcing brand new changes to the lighting on the Esplanade, can only mean on thing. You voted for your local councillors, take more care the next time you your cross on the ballot paper.

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F1 says...
1:39pm Wed 14 Jul 10

Scolopax wrote:
So you've sacked all the managers, that's about £750,000 saved and no-one to run the county, now where's the remaining £29.25m saving coming from? Can't you people stop petty sniping and make some intelligent suggestions.
Here here!

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DorsetEco says...
10:02pm Wed 14 Jul 10

“Dorset County Council is anxiously awaiting news on whether the £26 million upgrading of the A338 Bournemouth Spur Road will attract government funding despite the cuts.” - Bournemouth Echo 11.00am Tuesday 25th May 2010 (‘Wait and see over government cuts’)

A park and ride system from Ringwood to Bournemouth would make such schemes unnecessary and save 26 million. Then go on to save millions more in cost to commuters, cut co2, cut congestion in Bournemouth and save many lives. I am sure bus companies would be delighted to get involved.

2.5 million can be saved by not extending Christchurch Library at the cost of a business lost, “Kelly’s Restaurant” . The town does not want to lose any business, and the library already has 100 feet of High Street frontage and does not need to expand to 140 feet of frontage.

The Dorchester’s Charles St offices at 10.7 million – stay put til we are out of debt.

So that’s 26+2.5+10.7 million = 39.2 million!! Saved

Don’t pick on the small spenders, Branch libraries, Day Centres etc. which help to hold society together.

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