County ponders savings of �60m

Derbyshire County Council is faced with making cuts of £60m over the next five years in a bid to tackle a budget deficit.

Senior councillors said they would be looking at "cheaper and better ways of doing things" to make the savings.

District councils in the county are also making cuts with 40 posts going from Derbyshire Dales District Council.

The Dales district council is now looking to squeeze spending on leisure, parks and tourism.

It is not alone as North East Derbyshire District Council wants to cut 50 jobs by 2015, mainly from its back office staff.

As part of a BBC project, a "Facing the Cuts" questionnaire was sent to all county and city councils.

This will result in some job losses, but we hope they will come from natural wastage, vacancy controls and redeploying staff

Councillor Andrew Lewer

Neither Derbyshire County Council nor Derby City Council responded.

But in the county council's five-year financial plan, savings of £60m have been identified.

County council leader Andrew Lewer said savings needed to be made because of the state of the economy.

He said the money would be found from changes in management staff and frontline services would not suffer.

'Cash in reserve'

In a written statement, the council said: "We have to make £60m of efficiencies over the next five years and are doing this by finding cheaper and better ways of doing things, including better use of technology.

"This will result in some job losses, but we hope they will come from natural wastage, vacancy controls and redeploying staff to other areas.

"We are in a very robust financial position thanks to careful forward planning where we've saved for increased pressures on our budgets.

"We saved £6m in this financial year and have already identified £6m of efficiencies we need to make next year.

"We've just set the lowest council tax increase, since it started, at 1.5% and have cash in reserve to fund increased service pressures such as caring for older people and vulnerable children."

Mr Lewer added: "The drive is to work for efficiency and therefore make these savings without making compulsory redundancies if possible and without making frontline cuts that would lead people to suffer."