Shropshire Council leader warns of 'difficult' decisions on funding
Keeping council tax to a maximum and asking parish and town councils to take on extra work are among the ways suggested to help Shropshire Council cope with a shortfall in funding, a meeting heard.
They suggestions were made by council leader Peter Nutting, who warned further "difficult decisions" will need to be made by the council over the next few months.
The council is facing a shortfall in funding of £36 million for the next financial year and part of its plan to avoid large cuts to services is to also use a combination of its reserves.
Last month auditors Grant Thornton concluded that plans to use reserves to plug a multi-million pound hole in the council’s budget were a risk, but were “sufficiently mitigated” by plans to reduce costs and increase revenue.
The plan was discussed at Shropshire Council's cabinet meeting yesterday, where Councillor Nutting said: "Serious financial issues need to be addressed. There is no more money. We have to spend the money we have in our budget.
"We will have to make some difficult decisions in the next few months.
"Parish and town councils, especially the bigger ones, will have to take on some of the work.
"At the end of my four-year term I want to have a budget that is more sensible.
"We might have to make the council tax the maximum the government will allow us over the next few years."
Cabinet member Councillor David Minnery said: "We don't want to take the axe to services and haven't wanted to do some of the things we have already done. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
"There will need to be changes in attitudes and practices in this organisation."
Also at the meeting, the cabinet agreed to proposed changes to Shropshire Council’s council tax support scheme which could save the authority more than £1 million a year.
The council set out four options for the scheme, with its preferred option potentially saving it £1,190,000.
Cabinet members agreed to pursue with option four, which involves making changes to the existing scheme to align with housing benefit and introduce a minimum award of £1.50 per week and apply a 20 per cent minimum payment in council tax support.
The preferred option will be subject to a public consultation and be brought to full council on December 14 for final approval, coming into effect from April 2018.
The council is reviewing its local plan, moving it forward by 10 years, with the possibility of some building on green belt land.
Although almost 19,000 homes are already set to be built in the county, the plan says a further 10,000 will be needed by 2036.
The extra 10,347 houses are mostly planned for the towns in Shropshire, with 30 per cent planned for Shrewsbury, 24.5 per cent planned for the bigger towns such as Market Drayton, and Whitchurch, 18 per cent for smaller towns such as Much Wenlock and Bishop's Castle, and 27.5 per cent for rural areas.
The plans would be the subject of public consultation.
