Budget
Our Council continues to go through a period of huge change and is facing another year of significant budget pressure which will result in a Council that has fewer staff operating from fewer buildings and providing fewer direct services. Extremely difficult decisions will be taken by Members over the coming weeks and the transformation we must deliver in response to the reducing budgets will result in a Council emerging and delivering services very differently to the one delivering services today.
In November we asked staff and our communities to take the budget challenge. The results have helped shape the budget proposals ahead of budget setting at Full Council on 28 February. Our staff survey results can be found here (http://connect.dgcouncil.net/index.aspx?articleid=2878)
Although this is a difficult and unsettling time for many we’re still committed to spending over £300 million investing in and delivering our 4 priorities:
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- Build the local economy
- Provide the best start in life for all our children
- Protect our most vulnerable people, and
- Be an inclusive Council
We will be relentless in our focus in delivering our priorities. Essential services must continue to be delivered; just differently, whether that be in partnership, with community involvement, by volunteers or other organisations.
What does this mean for you?
Our Council is committed to no compulsory redundancies but there will be a reduction in some service areas and a reduction in the number of jobs. There will be a change in the senior management structure and services with a reduction from 19 Heads of Service to 15 which will change how services are led and reduce costs.
Our success now depends on how we develop our workforce and keep pace with the changing landscape of customer and user needs. It’s vital that as a workforce we are more diverse, flexible, skilled and engaged than ever before.
We need to encourage the movement of staff to jobs from areas where there is to be a reduction to those that support Council priorities and where we anticipate growth in demand for particular skills.
This movement of staff will be planned and offer opportunities to retrain and develop into different roles.
Transformation
Transformation is now an essential part of our Council’s core agenda to transform how we deliver services to reduce our budget gap over the next few years.
Transformation = Delivering a Modern Council with sustainable services.
This is being delivered through six main themes:
- Sustained focus of resources on our Council Plan priorities outcomes
- Transform our Customer experience and improve our Digital offer
- Modernise how we deliver some services to meet our outcomes
- Maximise use of fewer assets, working with and within communities
- Develop a smaller more flexibly skilled workforce for the future
- Maximising our income and underpinning fairness through targeted concessions
We are rightly proud of the Services we deliver for the people of our region. Despite the ongoing budget challenge, I know we will all work together to deliver on these themes.
Gavin Stevenson
Chief Executive
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