Wiltshire’s social costs take a toll on environment

14 June 2006

Wiltshire County Council is to cut spending on environmental services by £1.4M – part of a budget-recovery plan following a £7M overspend on adult social services.
The cabinet has agreed to take £600,000 from the highways maintenance budget by reducing the amount of money spent on repairing minor roads as part of a package of savings needed due to adult social services cost hikes. Officers advised that the effect of this would be to increase the minor roads maintenance backlog. The full impact of the decision will be reported to the environment advisory panel next month.
A further £500,000 would be saved on the environmental services directorate by reorganising and possibly merging teams.
Cllr Jane Scott, council leader, said the authority had faced some ‘very difficult decisions’ to bring the budget back into balance. The financial instability in adult social services was too great for the department to address alone.
She stressed that the largest element of the £4.5M savings package was the £2M secured by reducing back-office costs through ‘better contracts, not replacing staff when they leave and reorganising the way staff work’.

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Wiltshire’s social costs take a toll on environment

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