Shropshire Council boss says authority will achieve 'scary' £51m savings target
The leader of Shropshire Council says a £51m savings target is a "scary prospect" but has insisted the authority "will achieve it".
Councillor Lezley Picton was speaking after the publication of a progress review carried out by the Local Government Association (LGA) – following up on a review from June last year.
The warnings from the review painted a stark position of the council's finances, saying the authority faces "significant pressure" leaving "little room to manoeuvre" over the threat of financial insolvency.
At the centre of the concern is the council's need to make £51.390m of savings to deliver a balanced budget for 2023/24.
The LGA team said that even if the council makes 95 per cent of the planned savings, it would still exhaust all of its general reserves – highlighting the need to achieve 100 per cent of the target.
It said: "This is a position which leaves no room for under-delivery."
It also uses the example of previous years – where it says the council made only 82 per cent of its savings target in 2017/18, and just 68 per cent in 2022/23 – to illustrate the difficulties posed in realising the 95 per cent target.
