Lancashire County Council announces need for significant savings

A report for Lancashire County Council's cabinet has revealed that it will need to save an additional £223m by April 2020, to tackle a funding gap caused by reduced government funding and rising demand for services.

County councillor Jennifer Mein, leader of Lancashire County Council, said: "These are the most challenging times for local government in living memory as we face the combination of severe central government cuts and rising demand for our services, particularly those serving vulnerable people.

"At the same time, the new government will be making further substantial cuts to council budgets over the coming years. This continues at a time when, as the population ages, demand on many services will increase so that we'd be facing financial pressures even if the budget wasn't being reduced at all.

"Regrettably I'm also no longer confident we can reduce our workforce as much as we need to on a purely voluntary basis."

The additional savings will have an impact on the county council's workforce. A reduction of 1,400 posts had been planned as part of a transformation process already underway. It is now expected that a further reduction of 1,100 jobs will be necessary, making a total of 2,500 by April 2018 compared to March 2014. It is hoped that the bulk of these reductions can be made on a voluntary basis. To that end, the council will continue to invite employees to apply for voluntary redundancy.