Cheshire East Council Draft Business Plan published
today
January 24th, 2012
Cheshire East Council Leader,
Councillor Wesley Fitzgerald, has introduced the Council’s
new-look Draft Business Plan today.
The Plan has moved away from the traditional route of reporting
separately the Council’s budget for the coming year and its
corporate priorities. It now combines everything in one document to
show clearly the Council’s ambitions and its available
resources.
Councillor Fitzgerald said: “Despite the austere economic
climate, the Plan outlines proposals for the next three years that
support the Council’s determination to deliver the seven priorities
identified in the Sustainable Community Strategy, ‘Ambition for
All’. The Draft Business Plan is the culmination of months of
extensive and intense work. It has taken into account a
number of key influencing factors and every line of the budget has
been carefully scrutinised. It is clear that Cheshire East is
facing a challenging year.
“The amount Cheshire East receives from Government is lower than
the national average. As a result, the Council has £197 less to
spend per resident, but still achieves value for money in providing
excellent services for its residents. The Council collects Business
Rates on behalf of the Government. However, once Central Government
has taken its slice, the Council receives £59 less per head than
residents in similar-sized authority areas. In spite of these
challenging figures, the Council has produced a robust budget for
2012/13 which demonstrates clearly that we are working to achieve
the ‘Ambition for All’ priorities.”
The key areas of work that are needed cover every aspect of the
Council’s services, the communities it represents, including the
business world and the need to continually improve and give value
for money.
“Children and vulnerable people continue to be at the forefront
of the Council’s improvement aims for the future and we have
achieved significant steps forward in the standard of provision of
children’s services as our inspection results indicate,” continued
Councillor Fitzgerald. It is recognised that early intervention to
help children and their families is the key to reducing the demand
for in-house care. In the coming year, another £1.5million will be
invested in prevention.
“The needs of older people provide the biggest call for
resources. More and more people are turning to the Council for care
needs as their own capital dwindles. With 12 new cases being
referred every four weeks, the demand is outstripping the resources
– and again Cheshire East receives one of the lowest Government
grants for this service. Despite our huge recycling success, and
average savings of around £100,000 (approximately £100 a tonne) a
month in landfill charges, the substantial increases year-by-year
in landfill tax means that we can never catch up.”
In working to the priorities, the Council has had to balance the
need to reduce spending with the increasing demand on services. In
2010, the Chancellor announced a 25 per cent cut in Government
grants to councils over four years.
Councillor Fitzgerald added: “This reduction in grant, coupled
with austerity measures have resulted in a requirement of £7million
savings in 2012/13. However, when the significant increase in
service demand, especially among children and vulnerable older
people, is added, as well as inflation, the true savings need to be
in excess of £20million. That’s 9 per cent of the base budget. For
the second year, the Government has made a further grant of
£4.5million with a requirement that Council Tax is frozen at the
current level.”
The Draft Business Plan is available on the Council’s website at
www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/budget
and will be available for comment until February 23. Meetings will
be held with businesses, via the local Chamber of Commerce groups,
trades unions and the Schools’ Forum.
If anyone has any comments on the Plan, please send them to
shapingourservices@cheshireeast.gov.uk
