Archived decisions

REPORT OF THE

Cabinet / Leader

PART II

2006/07 ANNUAL EFFICIENCY STATEMENT: FORWARD-LOOK

The County Council has a statutory obligation to prepare and submit to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) an annual efficiency statement. In support of all aims of the Corporate Strategy and in particular improving the County Council's services, the Cabinet considered and approved the 2006/07 `forward look' efficiency plan statement at its meeting on 24 April 2006. The statement outlined the County Council's strategy for securing efficiency savings during 2006/07 and the key actions to be taken to ensure the savings are achieved. The budgeted efficiency gains eligible for the annual efficiency statement, as reported to the Cabinet on 10 February 2006, have been used and updated as appropriate with the addition of key actions in order to clarify the expectations of each service area. In addition, the ODPM requires councils to quantify total eligible efficiencies and the cashable gains expected for each service area. Where efficiency gains are considered to be cross-cutting, councils were invited to categorise them in `workstreams', namely: corporate services; procurement; productive time and transactions.

In summary, £11.7m of efficiencies were achieved in 2004/05, a further £15.0m of gains have been identified in 2005/06, and £15.5m have been planned for 2006/07 which gives an estimated cumulative total of £42.2m by the end of 2006/07. This estimated total allows for any potential underachievement as well as complying with the Comprehensive Performance Assessment framework which requires the highest rated councils to exceed the 2.5% target set by the ODPM.

The ODPM required the submission to be sent to them electronically using a prescriptive template therefore a copy of the substantive statement is available in the Members' Rooms. Additional copies can be obtained upon request from Democratic Services in the Chief Executive's Department.