By Lucy Phillips
6 April 2011
Almost all English local authorities are slashing senior and middle management costs to help balance their budgets, but libraries and Sure Start centres are also in the line of fire, according to a survey of council finance directors
The survey by the Local Government Association, Council budgets, spending and saving 2011, found that 90% of respondents had already reduced the pay and or numbers of senior officers and 79% had done the same for middle management.
In the coming year, 58% of authorities expected to make ‘proportionally greater savings’ from central services such as finance and human resources.
But frontline services will also be hit hard, with 83% of councils planning to make some savings from their library services and 63% intending to cut back on Sure Start centres.
The survey was sent to finance directors of 349 local authorities in England last month. Some 131 responded, a rate of 38%.
LGA chair Margaret Eaton said: ‘Councils know just how much value their residents place on the services they provide and are doing all they can to make sure they can continue to do so wherever possible.
‘However, we cannot escape the fact that councils are dealing with an unprecedented squeeze on their finances and some have seen their funding from government cut by up to 17%. The fact that the cuts have been frontloaded and councils have had to make the largest spending reductions in the first year has limited their ability to make savings through conventional efficiency drives, such as shared services.’
The survey also revealed that 52% of councils had no plans to reduce redundancy and severance payment terms and conditions despite the large numbers of staff cuts. The same proportion were also planning across-the-board pay freezes but the majority (73%) did not expect to reduce the pay of staff other than senior or middle managers.
Only a third of authorities said they would draw on their reserves in 2012/13.
