Liverpool Council cannot confirm the amount of jobs that could be lost as a result of its cost-cutting process “until the detailed work is done.”
Amid a £73m budget shortfall, Mayor Joanne Anderson warned in November that cuts to services and job losses would be "inevitable" as the local authority faces up to “horrific” budget options for next year. A document outlining how best the city may make significant savings was published almost three months ago and Mayor Anderson said officials would try to “ensure the smallest amount of job losses".
Addressing the issue during this evening’s joint mayoral and performance and finance and resource select committee, Jacqui McKinlay, the authority’s chief operating officer said a consultation had been launched with staff around possible cuts to jobs but it was “difficult to give an overall figure until the detailed work is done.”
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Ms McKinlay said an estimate could be given to the council’s cabinet as each directorate works through where it will make savings but reiterated her stance that the local authority would seek to reduce any redundancies through redeployment to other areas. Ian Duncan, interim finance officer, updated the committee on the work being done to balance the books.
He said while the council was “behind the curve” on the budget setting process in terms of its timeline, the government settlement it received had been £19m better than originally forecast. Mr Duncan said however some budget options were “not being delivered as anticipated” while with others there was “considerable doubt” as to whether they could be delivered at all.
Discussions remain ongoing around what level of council tax rises may be passed on to residents come April and the commissioners overseeing the city were aware of progress being made. Cllr Liam Robinson, cabinet member for finance and leader of the Labour group, said work would begin almost immediately to set next year’s budget after the council had agreed on the way forward for 2023/24.
Interim chief executive Theresa Grant fired a rare public rebuke on how things had been handled. She said she would usually start the budget setting process in March but on this occasion had to do so in November, having only come in to post in September.
Ms Grant added that robustness tests that would normally take place before the options went public “couldn’t happen this year” but the proportion of originally touted options that have fallen by the wayside is “quite reasonable.” She added: “I’d love to think it’s an organisation where it’s business as usual but I feel obliged to point out it’s not.”
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