Archived decisions

2007/08 ANNUAL EFFICIENCY STATEMENT: FORWARD-LOOK

1. The County Council has a statutory obligation to prepare and submit an annual efficiency statement to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), but in any event would wish to do so to demonstrate its efficiency plans including the strategy for securing the improvements and key actions to be taken to ensure the savings are achieved.

2. The Cabinet considered and approved the 2007/08 `forward look' efficiency plan statement at its meeting on 23 April 2007. The budgeted efficiency gains eligible for the statement, as reported to the Cabinet on 9 February 2007 have been used and updated as appropriate with the addition of key actions in order to clarify the expectations of each service. The DCLG also requires councils to quantify total eligible efficiencies and the cashable gains expected for each service area as defined by the template supplied for completion.

3. In summary, £12.4m and £17.9m of efficiencies were achieved in 2004/05 and 2005/06 respectively; a further £15.5m have been identified for 2006/07, and £16.0m planned for 2007/08 which gives an estimated cumulative total of £61.8m efficiency gains by the end of 2007/08 compared with the three year target of £43.7m. The estimated total of £16m in 2007/08 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. However the cash releasing saving in the budget is a lower £7.6m out of the estimated saving of £16m. This amount is equivalent to a saving of 1.3% which is only about half of the new more difficult 3% target proposed in the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007. The data in the statement is the result of financial planning carried out in accordance with the County Council's financial management policy, which applies equally to all services to ensure consistent financial management and decision making across the organisation.

4. A copy of the substantive statement is available in the Members' Rooms and additional copies can be obtained, upon request, from Democratic Services in the Chief Executive's Department.