Lancashire County Council’s cabinet was presented with a revised set of budget options yesterday, setting out how the council could achieve its savings target by April 2018.
Senior council officers presented a report to the November Cabinet meeting, detailing how services could be delivered in future and how this could enable savings to be made.
However options for further savings still needed to be identified to contribute to the £176m in savings the council must deliver by 2017-18.
The revised options have again been made public so that people can provide feedback up until Friday 19th December.
David Borrow, Deputy Leader of the Council, explained: “This is the biggest challenge faced by Lancashire County Council in many years and I want to encourage people to tell us what they think of these options.
“Central government cuts and rising demand for essential services, such as social care, mean that by April 2018 we have to reduce the council’s budget by £315 million.
“That will take our total savings since 2010 to £547 million, so this will need radical action. We are committed to fairness, spending according to need, and will do all we can to ensure the vulnerable are protected.
“Whilst we can achieve some savings by finding more intelligent and efficient ways of working it is clear that we will have to change some services and stop providing others altogether. To make sure we reflect what the people of Lancashire want, we really need their feedback.”
The Cabinet is expected to bring forward its budget proposals at its meeting in January, having considered the feedback received about the different options.
To help people provide that feedback, a Budget Calculator has been developed on the Lancashire County Council website. It gives an insight into the challenges of setting a balanced budget as any money protected in one area has to be taken out of another.
• People can feedback their opinions on the budget options at the Budget Have Your Say page on www.lancashire.gov.uk where they can also find the Lancashire Budget Calculator. Or you could start telling your local Tory MP where to stick their cuts and attack on public services. It’s up to you.