An update from Full Council

Today is Full Council and this morning councillors debated and agreed the budget for 2018/19. This included the proposals to save £25 million to fund the increased demand in services; particularly in adult and children’s social care and to increase Council Tax and the Social Care Levy by a total of 5.99%. (Please see our separate message about this here on The Wire.

Members will discuss this afternoon the draft recommendation of the council’s electoral review committee to increase the number of Wiltshire councillors from 98 to 99. The draft recommendations will go to the Local Government Boundary Commission for a decision on the number of elected members that this council should have. Any changes won’t take effect until the next full council election, in 2021. We will update on the outcome in next week’s blog.

Whilst this week there is inevitably a great deal of focus on the budget, we have also discussed with cabinet members (at our weekly meeting yesterday) the Wiltshire Local Plan refresh (updating the Wiltshire Core Strategy to 2036). The discussion focused on how we align future growth - both housing and business - to the council’s aspirations set out in its ten year Business Plan. This needs to include all public sector services – what will be needed and where these will be located; such as health services, police and fire, and how we will work with these partners and others, including the MoD to make sure that we provide the housing, infrastructure and community facilities that Wiltshire needs in the future.  This is a major programme of work for the council and cabinet members will take an in-depth look at the Local Plan Refresh programme of work on the 12 March to agree the next steps.

As you are aware we have a number of other major programmes of work underway. These focus on transforming key services; adults and children’s, implementing digitisation and becoming more commercial. We are also focusing on what more communities can do and where they may be best placed to deliver services and facilities locally.

These programmes form part of the budget proposals being discussed today, as they are all projecting to deliver significant savings. Our programmes to transform how we deliver services were also covered in last year’s peer review, and the peer review findings and recommendations will be published soon. The feedback has helped us to focus on an action plan to deliver improvements and we look forward to sharing this with you shortly.

Finally for this week;

We are pleased to update that we will be hosting the 2018 LGA Local Government Challenge in April. Local government officers compete in a series of real-life challenges and are tasked with problem solving to come up with innovative solutions to the challenges faced by local government. We have been asked to set a challenge which is likely to be around one of our transformation programmes. The LGA allocates a scholarship of £10,000 to the winner and we hope that Kartar Singh (senior corporate policy officer), as one of this year’s contestants, will enjoy the experience and learning and maybe win the scholarship!

And, some of you may be aware that Michael Hudson, director of finance and procurement and the council’s statutory Section 151 officer has announced that he will be leaving Wiltshire Council after seven years to take up the role of director of finance with Worcestershire County Council, which is near to where he lives. During his seven years Michael has ensured that the council has successfully managed its finances including the pension fund, treasury management activity, revenues and benefits and has ensured that a balanced budget has been set and delivered each year despite the significant financial challenges we have faced throughout this period. We would like to thank Michael for this. Michael will leave in May and I am sure you will all join us in wishing him well in his new role. Steps to recruit a replacement for Michael will take place shortly.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence.