Cornwall Council is taking decisive action to ensure that it protects essential services for the people of Cornwall  from the impact of the severe budget cuts it is facing over the next four years by setting its own emergency budget for 2011 in November soon after the outcome of the comprehensive spending review.
 
 
 

Council Leader Alec Robertson says that the Council is anticipating cuts of around 30% in Government funding over the next four years which means it needs to find £110 million savings from 2011 onwards. 
 
 
 
Stressing that the Council needs to take urgent action if it is to tackle this shortfall and protect services and jobs, he warned that failing to act now will lead to more difficult decisions having to be made in the future.
 
 
 
“The country is facing a financial crisis and we are determined to manage the situation ourselves rather than waiting for someone else to tell us where to make cuts” he said. “We know that we have some very difficult decisions to make but delaying these decisions now will have a much more severe impact on jobs and services in the future”.
 
 
 
Mr Robertson said that the approach being developed by the Council involved making as many savings as possible over the next twelve months rather than waiting until future years in order to protect essential services.
 
 
 
“Pay and wages make up around half of the Council’s budget so there will inevitably be job losses” he said.  “Current estimates suggest that around 2,000 jobs will go over the next few years.
 
The unions recognise that these cuts need to be made now if we are to avoid the need for even more job losses in the future and we will be working closely with them to minimise the impact of these losses”.
 
 
 
“We appreciate that this will be a very difficult time for our staff but the truth is that there is no easy solution.  The longer we delay the more services and jobs are at risk.
 
 
 
Detailed work is currently underway to identify the areas of savings in readiness for the emergency budget due to be presented to the Council’s Cabinet on 13 October and to the full Council in November.
 
 
 
The areas of savings identified so far include:
 
    * Property rationalisation - cutting back on the number of buildings used by the Council will generate savings of at least £3 million a year which will be used to support essential core services.
    * Integrated services – the Council is already joining together its environment, highways and environment services to create a single shared service.  This will provide a more efficient and responsive service at the same time as generating greater value for money for Council taxpayers.  It will now be looking at extending this work to other areas of its services.

    * Procurement – the Council needs to ensure that it gets value for money from its contracts with suppliers and other organisations.  It also needs to integrate contracts in areas such as waste where there are currently six separate refuse collection contracts with six separate private sector providers.  It will also be looking at ways of joining with partners to commission services such as health and care and looking at the income it generates from fees and charges.
 
 
 
 “Cornwall, like other parts of the country, is facing a period of unprecedented change and we need to be ready to deal with the challenges that lie ahead of us” said Mr Robertson.  “Taking decisive action now will ensure that we are in charge of our own destiny and can make our own decisions rather than looking to others to find solutions to our problems.
 
 
 
“We need to review the level of the services we provide to people in Cornwall and to look carefully at how these services are being delivered.
 
 
 
We know that we will have to do things differently in the future.  The changes in the public sector being proposed by the Government offer opportunities as well as challenges and we need to ensure that we are ready to take full advantage of these.  Delivering savings now will enable us to minimise job losses and cuts in services. ”.
 
 
 
 “Cornwall Council is determined to meet both the challenges and the opportunities ahead and we will be looking to work with our partners and the people of Cornwall to ensure that we create the Cornwall that we want and deserve”.