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Upcoming improvements that will deliver financial savings

1 May 2025

There are many projects in the transformation plan that have the potential to deliver significant benefits – including financial savings for the council and local council taxpayers.  

Some examples, include: 

  • Prevent, Reduce, Enable project – We know if we can help earlier, it helps people to be independent for longer. Helping people earlier reduces the costly demand on higher-need services in the future for us too. Over the next four years we will invest £8.75m to put people at the heart of our services. This will generate over £27m in financial benefits to the council over the next four years.
  • Digital transformation (AI) – We recognise that AI will be important for us. AI-driven automation is being introduced to improve how we interact with residents who contact the council. We will make it easier for people to get the information they need and reduce demand on staff, freeing up time for more complex cases. We need to use AI and maximise its potential. Working in new ways is expected to deliver over £12m savings.
  • Fees and charges – These allow the council to pay for services and make improvements in local communities, such as maintaining car parks or buying library books. We have identified ways to make charges fairer across the borough. This will generate an extra £1m of income this year across services such as planning, social care, waste, parking and bereavement services. We are also working on plans for an additional £2m in new income opportunities which, if approved, would be implemented from April 2026.
  • Asset strategy review – Owning an asset costs the taxpayer money. We need to review all our assets and maximise their use to ensure they provide value for money. In doing this review, we anticipate generating savings of £400,000 a year in property management and running costs, as well as potentially generating up to £9.8m in income from the sale of assets.
  • Fleet management – The council has ambitious environmental goals to become carbon neutral. As the owner of many vehicles, we have been identifying potential savings and supporting our environmental goals with savings of £500,000 per year in cost avoidance and £150,000 in cash savings by 2029/30. 

You can view more information about the projects on the transformation hub.