The community council are consulting on where efficiency savings could be made in the council. The cabinet member for finance, strategy and performance will provide a brief introduction, which will be followed by a question and answer session.
An interactive session on the budget challenge will take place during the break.
Minutes:
Councillor Fiona Colley, cabinet member for finance, strategy and performance talked about the budget challenge and the council’s spending and proposed cuts.
During the last round of cuts people said they wanted to retain front line services, and bring some services in house which meant it would be more effective to collect council tax payments. It also meant council tax would remain the same without any increase. Also, to keep libraries open and provide free healthy school meals in Southwark.
The council would be adopting 10 new fairer future challenges. This involved looking at services that could be provided online. This would be more effective joined up work with other government agencies and a review of those services that were duplicated.
Residents were invited during the break to take part in this year’s budget consultation exercise. This involved a red and green cheques interactive session that enabled residents to show which areas of council spending they thought should be reduced and which areas should be protected in the future.