The cut to North Yorkshire County Council’s government funding is worse even than anticipated.
The funding settlement announced by the Government yesterday results in a reduction in funding for the county council of £10.1M in 2013/14 and a further £12.1 in 2014/15 (5.9% and 7.6% reduction respectively).
The initial assessment therefore is that the cut is worse by £1.1m than we had anticipated.
This means that on top of the current £69 m four-year savings programme to 2014/15, the authority is now also looking at a deficit in the region of £24 million over the next two years instead of the £22 million anticipated, making a total reduction of £93m by 2014/15.
The council does not expect to have confirmation of its funding from central Government until January 2013, but consideration is already being given to where further reductions in spending might be made, because it will be necessary to begin implementing these reductions in April 2013.
County Councillor John Weighell, the Leader of the Council said:
Our original task of finding £69m in savings posed very considerable challenges.
Now we are having to make far greater savings and to a very short deadline.
The first indication that the council would face cuts of this nature came in August, and we didn’t know the full scale of the savings until last month.
Now we know the extent of the savings we have to make is even greater than we had feared.
More than half of the savings already made have come from reducing administration and bureaucracy. The council has done all it can to protect frontline services, and will continue to do so.
However, we have now reached the stage where we will have to look at every service the council provides.
