A report published by Somerset Council today gives an insight into the merger of the five predecessor councils. On 1 April four districts and Somerset County Council merged to form the new Somerset Council.
£18.5m of costs savings were planned when the formation of a new unitary council was approved by central government. Of those on going cost savings, £12.3m were supposed to be achieved by reducing staff numbers by 339. That process should have started in advance of the merger date with councils working together on local government reorganisation.
The £12.3m of savings was split between senior management posts of £2.9m and other staff of £9.4m. Today’s report confirms that much of the senior staff saving, a total of £2.6m has been made. However there has been no progress towards savings on other staff posts.
Delivery of future costs savings will be considered along with other budget reports at the Somerset Council full council meeting on 20 December.
Good article and very timely.
What about disposing of or renting out excess properties inherited from the 5 former councils? Is that work similarly late and underwhelming?
Back in October, I spoke to the Audit Committee about a lack of pace and urgency in making unitary savings, to then be told “the bankruptcy iceberg was spotted but a lot closer than thought”!
If you base a new unitary Council on an existing County Council as a “continuing authority” and then re-employ nearly all the same senior staff without external competition, why would you expect any service culture and performance management changes?
The Council continues to support working from home all of the working week as an employee choice. Without a few days a week in the office, most private companies believe that this damages team working, performance management and service efficiency. The private sector and the Government have gripped this issue but not our new unitary Council.
Sadly, the new Lib Dem administration needed to start well and stamp their authority on the inherited service cultures from the County Council, but those early opportunities were, in my view, squandered.
How do you ask for big Council Tax rises whilst straightforward efficiency savings are not realised?
I am told anecdotally that the new unitary Council employs 50 staff for communications and an astonishing additional 60 people in programme management (when most services are commissioned to external providers).
50 staff on communication?? Shame not one of them can’t find the 30 seconds to reply to my email 16 Nov which has the automated Reference number: 5588e34c
So the current mess at Somerset is because the LibDem administration ignored the cost savings planned by the outgoing Conservative administration – well that and their decision to undertake reckless spending on non-essential items such as the Octagon Theatre.
What we need in Somerset and should get for our already eye-watering council tax are safe roads without potholes so we can all get to work and run successful businesses that provide local employment and enough support staff to make sure vulnerable children get the education they need.
If the LibDems insist on frittering aware money on theatres for their voters amongst the wealthy public sector retirees then the rest of us suffer. I have heard that it cost £7.7 million just to close the Octagon and as for the budget for the refurb it is apparently closer to trebled than doubled; still theatre loving Liz must be kept happy.
i believe they started the Octagon but could not finish the project??
Not quite. The previous Con administration guessed they could make a saving of £18.5m. We’ve looked high and low but cannot find any calculations to back up this number in the One Somerset business case.
Regardless, it’s in the business case so we need to deliver it. Currently we’re on track to achieve a figure very close to £18.5m but it’s not going to happen overnight and events have overtaken us as we’ve had to declare a Financial Emergency to put a brake on all spending.
Besides, note that £18.5m is a drop in the ocean compared to scale of the social care challenge (+£70 million next year).
My sympathies lie with all those good Somerset folk who didn’t vote Lib/dem, the ones who voted Lib/dem are responsible for the expected mess the Lib/dems have made of running this Council, just like the failed last time they ran it.
The redundancy programme was planned as part of the “unification” process. Would Somerset Council confirm to residents that all redundancies were planned to be un-enhanced, i.e. purely the legal minimum with no additional payoffs?