Council cost-cutting drive called into question

Opposition councillors have warned a major cost-cutting review at Leicestershire County Council will not be able to find significant savings before the authority sets its next budget in February.

The Reform UK-led council announced it would pay consultancy firm Newton £1.4m to seek out savings in a process launched in November with the aim of trying to plug a £90m budget gap anticipated by 2029.

The council's lead member for resources, Harrison Fowler, told a meeting at County Hall on Wednesday he was "happy" with the "early indications" from the efficiency review.

However Liberal Democrat councillor Simon Galton said he had doubts it would have much impact on the coming 2026-27 budget.

He said he felt the "low-hanging fruit" had already been picked in previous years of cost-cutting, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) added.

"It's a real tall order to produce anything by the time we have to set a budget in late February that could in any way make a contribution to closing the gap in the budget this year," Galton said.

"It seems to me that this is a much longer timescale thing.

"It can take years to put those into action through service transformation and so on."

Conservative leader of the opposition Deborah Taylor said she was willing to keep an "open mind" when it came to the review.

However, she added: "But I don't think it will deliver much before we have to set a budget for next year, which concerns me greatly with the budget gap that we are still showing going forwards."

Fowler said: "We are constrained on time when it comes to the budget.

"I'm fully aware of that and I'm not going to try to pull the wool over anyone's eyes.

"But ultimately we have been working with Newton for a couple of weeks, and it's still early stages, but we have confidence that they will be able to deliver the savings.

"Yes, it's not going to fix the problem overnight and yes it's going to be a long-term thing [but] that doesn't mean that savings can't be delivered quickly."

Reform is set to outline its early budget proposals in the coming days.

The party does not have an overall majority on the council and some opposition members said they would not vote through a budget with heavy cuts to services.

Fowler said he understood the "delicacy of delivering savings without cutting services".

He said: "I assure you that our efficiency review will not put at risk the care residents receive."

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