Latest figures underline scale of financial challenges ahead
The latest budget information from Telford & Wrekin Council shows how it continues to face huge challenges to make the cuts it must find.
Telford & Wrekin Council has already cut its budget by £80m since 2010 and expects to have to find around another £47m of cuts by 2020 as Government grant is cut further.
The Council expects to balance its budget by the end of this financial year while pressures are as strong as ever in two key areas - early help and support for vulnerable adults and the cost of children in care placements.
Supporting vulnerable adults accounts for almost one third of the Council’s budget and is mainly made up of the cost of care packages. The costs linked to Children in Care, reflects pressures nationally following a number of high profile child care cases.
Rather than “slash and burn”, the Council says it will phase in the cuts needed in these two areas over the course of this year and will use £6.4 million of contingencies put aside for exactly this purpose.
A report to the Council’s cabinet on 21 July highlights that both these areas have plans that will come forward to help improve the financial position and that the Council expects with this and use of contingencies, to be able phase in the required cuts.
Councillor Lee Carter, cabinet member for Finance, Partnerships and Commercial Services, said: “This is another indication of the size and difficulty of the task we face. These cuts we now need to make are more and more difficult and will be felt more than ever by our residents, particularly by those whose are already feeling the effects of austerity.
”We will be asking our residents for their views of how we make further cuts required as a result of further reductions in the grant that we receive from the Government early next year.
“Against this backdrop, it’s key that we fight for every penny that we are due. For example, if this borough had just the average of the Government’s own measure of councils spending power, we’d have an extra £12m a year to spend on services such as those for vulnerable adults and children.
“That’s the equivalent of £163 a year for every household in the borough – all we ask for is our fair share.”
