The news that the London Borough of Barnet is not finding it easy to deliver savings is not surprising. All local authorities are going to struggle because of the size of savings required. What makes Barnet’s difficulties news worthy is that they claimed to have found the answer to delivering public services whilst operating within a reduced budget. Barnet proudly boasted that they intended to by the first “easy council”. They would meet ambitious efficiency targets by providing no frill council services using the model of the low cost airlines.
Councillors in Barnet have found that it’s not so easy to make the size of savings required and not possible to do it by simply making efficiencies. They were at best naive to claim that they had a way of making savings without making cuts to front line services their pre election claims were based not on what their officers will have been telling them but on an unproven believe that council services needed a dose of private sector realism.
However they will not be the only council facing up to the fact that they have to make large scale redundancies, cut grants to the voluntary sector, close day centres, libraries and leisure centre and take away home helps from frail elderly people. They will not be alone in finding that such dramatic cuts are unpopular but also that they take a lot longer to deliver than they anticipated. In the face of hostility from local media stays of execution will be granted whilst options are considered, closures will be phased to give time for alternative to be found, compromises will be agreed because politics is the art of the possible and frankly the original plans were impossible. And then there are the efficiencies which never really existed except on paper. The savings that allowed officers and councillors to claim that cuts to front line services would not be necessary like halving absenteeism rates, the ban on over time and the use of agency staff and better management of vacancies. And of course the total ban on the use of expensive management consultants.
What happens if the saving are not made? In the past if an individual department over spent some one might be sacked but under spends from other departments and reserve funds would balance the budget. What would happen if over ambitious efficiency targets resulted in a local authority running out of money and being unable to pay its bills? It has never happened but then no one thought banks could go bust.
Blair McPherson is author of People Management in a Harsh Financial Climate www.blairmcpherson.co.uk