Consultations

In November we asked you, through surveys in Community Pride and on our website, to give the Council your views on budget cuts.

We received 433 responses to the consultation.

Your views will be taken into consideration when elected members are making difficult budget decisions this year.

You told us:

• The Council services you think are the most important are: education; services for the elderly; children’s services and refuse collection.
• The Council services you think we should cut back on were: refuse collections (collect fortnightly) and back office functions.
• The Council services you thought we should stop altogether were: Community Pride and translation/interpreting services.
• Other ways you suggested we could save money, reduce costs or increase income were: reduce councillors’ expenses and meal allowances; reduce employee costs and terms and conditions; and reduce the number and pay of managers.

Despite increasing demand for services and reducing resources, the Council is determined to continue working with public, private and third sector partner organisations, communities and citizens to do everything in its power to build a confident and outward looking district and to remain focussed on the things that matter most to local people and the Bradford district.

The Council has to save £56m from its budget in the next financial year. We are doing this in a number of ways, including:

• Restructuring our senior management team to reduce the number of senior management posts in the Council.
• Vacancy management – only in exceptional cases are we replacing staff who leave the Council. We have also drastically reduced the number of agency staff that we use.
• The Changing our Council programme is transforming the way we operate as a Council – for example centralising our purchases to take advantage of bulk discounts; introducing flexible and mobile working to save transport costs and reducing the amount of printed materials we produce.
• Reviewing all our services to find different ways of delivering them – or considering whether they need to be delivered at all.
• Asking staff whether they wish to apply for voluntary redundancy,flexible retirement or reduce their hours.
• Asking our staff through a Suggestion Box scheme for suggestions in the way that services could be delivered more cost efficiently or differently.

Councillors, who you have elected to represent you, will make the final decisions in February at the annual budget meeting of Council.