Council Leader calls on Government to immediately reverse impacts of austerity

The Leader of Flintshire County Council Cllr Aaron Shotton has called on the Government to immediately reverse the impacts of austerity “if we are to successfully defend services into the future.”

The Council forecasts the “gap” for 2018/19 between income and expenditure is currently £11.7M.

Any savings the Council make will be on top of the significant savings they have had to make over the last few years. “whilst protecting local services and jobs, despite being a low-funded Council.”

The Leader of Flintshire County Council, Councillor Aaron Shotton, said:

We need to work harder than ever to plan and deliver essential council services in this continuing period of financial austerity.

Flintshire is a particularly low funded council and, as such, is much more exposed to the impacts of significant annual budget reductions when combined with the increasing needs of our residents for key services such as social care.

I believe that there is increasing public support and understanding of the reality that Government must act immediately to reverse the impacts of austerity if we are to successfully defend services into the future.

Each council service area is subject to extensive and ongoing reviews and is being asked how they can respond to these unprecedented cost pressures.

The Council has limited efficiency options without having to reduce services to unacceptable levels of service provision.

Flintshire County Council’s Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee will be asked to support and develop the framework for the revision of the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) 2018/19 when it meets later this month.

The report sets out an initial review of the current position for 2018/19. This will be followed by further work on forecasting the financial position for future years with the aim to develop an MTFS which forecasts the position of the Council up until 2022.