Services pledge as council to make up to £4m of savings

A series of projects are being developed to make the saving, including a major restructure of management and exploring shared services with authorities in Chichester and Horsham.

But despite the sizeable saving required in light of dwindling Government funding, chief executive Nigel Lynn hopes this will not impact on services.

He told the council’s overview select committee on Tuesday: “The intention is not to affect front line services at all in any way if we can help it but to look at the back office to see how we can do it in a more effective way going forward.”

A restructure of council management will see around 65 posts reviewed, potentially saving up to £400,000.

Mr Lynn said services would be ‘shared, outsourced or become more effective in another way’, with departments from ICT to legal potentially shared with other councils.

And while most of the projects focus on back-office efficiency, a working group will discuss a project entitled ‘fewer public toilets’ later this month.

Car parking charges, which have already increased, are hoped to boost income by up to £150,000, while an ongoing project looking at cemeteries fees could see £40,000 generated by five per cent increases in 2017/18 and 2018/19.

Mr Lynn said members had asked for the public toilets project to be investigated and he anticipated a cabinet decision in July.

A report to councillors noted many projects needed ‘a lot more time’ to be developed because of a staffing pressures. Mr Lynn told the Gazette it was his role to motivate staff, who were driven to make a difference.

Elsewhere, the council intends to improve its digital service, recognising residents increasingly looked online when interacting with the authority.

Liberal Democrat councillor James Walsh said the initiative, named ‘Vision 2020’, was a ‘missed opportunity’, calling for a more radical unitary authority model to be investigated.