Over 100 council posts remain vacant to save money

Measures, described as ‘draconian’ and ‘strict’, have helped Cornwall Council claw back its worrying financial position, but the local authority still faces an overspend of almost £8 million during the second quarter of the year.

Those measures have included tightly controlling expenditure of anything over £1,000 and not filling vacant posts, of which there are more than 100.

The local authority’s Cabinet meeting on Wednesday (November 11) will hear that at the end of the second quarter of this financial year, the council is forecasting a revenue overspend of £7.750m against the approved 2026/27 budget, an improvement of £9.258m from the Quarter 1 forecast of £17.008m. That forecast overspend was mitigated to £10.857m by the time the Quarter 1 report was presented to Cabinet in September.

Much of the improvement reflects additional grant funding, service underspends and the introduction of spending controls. However, the mitigations do not resolve the underlying recurring pressures and “the improved headline forecast should therefore not be interpreted as a sustainable recovery in the council’s financial position”.

A report to Cabinet also states that there are additional financial risks of up to £12.058m, which are excluded from the £7.750m forecast overspend because of uncertainty over whether, or when, they will materialise. Of that, £8.421m is assessed as having a high likelihood of crystallising.

As usual, the overspend is driven primarily by children’s placement costs and adult social care commissioning pressures, plus the non-delivery of planned savings.

In September, the council’s interim chief executive Andy Keeling told staff: “We urgently need to bring our spending under control, not least because of the significant budget gap we have for next year. We have no headroom to end this year in deficit, so we need to act now.”

He said, as a result, the council was introducing immediate spending controls in relation to pay and recruitment, conferences and seminars, spend on advertising and out of Cornwall travel. “To help us do this, spending control panels will be set up in every directorate,” he wrote to staff. “In addition, a pay cost control panel will be set up corporately so that we have more grip on changes to grades, acting up arrangements and overtime, as well as recruitment.”

Mr Keeling added: “The bottom line is that you can all help. Every single penny that we save will improve our situation. So I want each of you to consider carefully how your day-to-day decisions support careful and responsible use of resources.”

He told staff that control panels will control expenditure over £1,000 and over. “But expenditure under £1,000 is just as important if every employee can identify a saving,” added the interim boss.

Speaking ahead of this week’s Cabinet meeting, deputy leader and member for resources Cllr Adam Paynter told us: “It’s slightly more positive than where we were in Q1. We have moved from £10.9m to £7.75m, so £3.15m reduction in overspend for the year. Obviously, we’re still working on that – we’ve got the financial controls in place to keep that going down. Looking at the monthly figures, that is still going down. That’s positive but clearly we need to keep going to make sure we get that down to zero or ideally a slight underspend.”

Regarding the savings, he added: “We’ve been very strict. Every spend over £1,000 has to go through a process – before, officers would have just signed them off. We’re taking that delegated authority away. It’s pretty draconian – we’ve literally said, ‘no, you go through this process’ and everybody is going through that process.

“The brakes have been slammed on everything. If it’s heath and safety, or something that has definitely got to be spent, it will get done. We’re being sensible.”

“It focuses minds,” added leader Leigh Frost.

Cllr Paynter said the savings have been down to a mixture of those expenditure controls and not filling vacant posts, of which there are currently more than 100 out of a workforce of over 5,500. “We’re currently going through a complete audit of all our posts. If somebody leaves, retires or moves, we’ve not been appointing straight back into those, which gives you that budget saving now.

“Equally, we’re looking back over that as we’ve got over 100 posts that have been sat as vacant, which is a budget saving in that individual department, but is that helping us with our priorities? We’re auditing how it works.”

The officers’ report to Cabinet shows a number of positives, including the number of households in temporary accommodation continuing to fall, from 871 at the end of the first quarter of the financial year to 807 at the end of Quarter 2, continuing the reduction from 940 in April. Homelessness cases successfully prevented fell from 78.7% to 68.5% but remain above the 55% target.

The percentage of council-owned decent homes rose from 87.5% at the end of Q1 to 88.2% at the end of Q2, steady progress towards the target of 90%. At the quarter end, no family had spent more than six weeks in bed and breakfast accommodation, compared with three at the end of Quarter 1.

Areas of challenge include delivery of new council homes. Thirty three homes have been completed to date. However, 28 planned acquisitions have been delayed or lost due to suitability and legal issues, making full achievement of the annual target unlikely.

The report adds: “The sustained period of geopolitical instability and price volatility is placing increasing pressure on businesses and households. This is particularly evident through rising fuel and energy costs, which are expected to become more significant as Cornwall enters the colder months.”