We must make some significant changes to some of our services.
Some of our services are statutory, and we are required to provide them by law, other services are discretionary. Some discretionary services are important because they can help reduce demand for statutory services by helping to address issues before they become serious.
We must prioritise the services we are required to provide by law.
We are a large employer; we employ over 3,000 staff. We are planning to significantly reshape the organisation, reducing our costs by £13.1m. This will mean reducing non-essential spend and reducing the number of staff we employ across the council. This may mean we will be slower to respond to queries, waiting times may be longer and the council will have reduced capacity to deliver new projects and initiatives.
We will provide our core services including collecting your bins and fixing potholes (in line with our policy).
We are also proposing to:
- Reduce the opening hours at all four Household Waste Recycling Centres from 7 days a week, 9am-5pm (8hrs a day), to open 5 days a week, 7.5hrs a day. Two sites will be open on any given day.
- Reduce the opening hours of Dunstable Library in line with most of our other libraries. This means Dunstable Library will be closed on Sundays and Mondays.
- Cease activities associated with our Arts and Cultural Strategy. The UKSPF funding for arts and culture activities that the council is currently providing is unaffected.
- Remove Ward Councillor Grants. Each Ward Councillor currently has up to £2,000 per year to spend on local community projects.
- No longer provide some of our safer neighbourhood work. There would be less ‘on the ground’ patrols, reduced joint working with Bedfordshire Police and other agencies e.g. weapons sweeps, cuckooing and drugs, and reduced intelligence in relation to crime and anti-social behaviour.
- Review funding to the voluntary sector to provide support to people with lower mental health needs to get into and maintain employment. There are wider employment support services available for residents, but this is not specific to people with mental health needs. There is also an ICB-funded Employment Support offer for people with higher-level mental health needs.
- Review funding for carers in hospital hub. There is reduced service in the local hospitals for this due to a lack of space and carers can access support via Carers in Bedfordshire, which the council funds. We also fund Mobilise, who provide our Digital Carers Support offer.
- Review funding for Community Catalysts, which support micro-enterprises to set up and maintain care services. The service was set up at a time when market provision of care was challenging, and this is not now the case.
- Fund our local welfare provision from the Household Support Fund. Local welfare provision is used for emergency payments to residents in hardship. The Household Support Fund is funding from the Government that is available until March 2025. This funding has been provided for the last few years, but there is no guarantee it will continue.
- Review care packages for people living at home.
You can read about all of the proposed efficiencies in the draft budget papers on this website.