How does Doncaster Council spend its money?
Doncaster Council has to make significant budget savings over the next few years. We are on track to make the £38m savings in 2011/12. We have managed to make limited changes to frontline services but have substantially changed how we provide some of our ‘back office’ services to make them much more efficient and less costly. The target for 2012/13 to 2014/15 is a further £65m, which means we have had to substantially rethink how we provide services, making sure that they offer value for money and the best possible services for residents.
None of these have been easy decisions to make however, finding further savings every year gets more and more difficult. Our residents have told us in the past year that there are certain areas they feel most strongly should not be cut such as provision of benefits, services for adults, waste/recycling, services for children and making communities safer.
Savings needed over the next 3 years
2012/13=£30m, 2013/14=£17m, 2014/15=£18m |
You have also given us an indication where you feel savings can be made. These were in staff and senior salaries, leisure services, libraries, youth activities and in the arts.
Here are some examples of the areas where savings have been made so far and the estimated amounts:
| Reducing the cost of our senior management | £1.4m |
| Reductions in other council staff | over £14m |
| Not filling and deleting vacant posts | over £5m |
| Improving how we buy goods and services | over £3m |
| Changing how we provide library services | £0.9m |
| Making better use of our assets | £0.5m |
We will be progressing some of these areas further, for example how we buy goods and services and better useof our assets to deliver more savings.
We are also reviewing the following areas for 2012/13:
- Changes to terms and conditions for staff
- Modernising Adults services
- Reducing Waste costs where possible
- Changes to our customer services
What services does a family in Doncaster use?
Many people do not realise that some of the services they use are provided by the council. All families are different and people rely on the council more or less depending on their age and circumstances. The family below are not real but will give you an idea how much money the council has budgeted to spend in 2011/12 on some of the services they use (figures are the total budget for 2011/12 across the whole of Doncaster, not the cost for each individual member of the family).
Where does the Council get its money from?
The council get the majority of its money from central government with only 27% coming from council tax.
In 2011/12 the council’s budget of £352m came from:
| Council Tax Payers | £94m |
| Collection Fund Surplus | £2m |
| Formula Grant (government) | £145m |
| Specific Grants (government) | £58m |
| Fees and Charges/Other Income |
And where do we spend it?
In 2011/12 we are currently budgeting to spend the following amounts:
Adults & Communities £131m - this includes personalised support and protection for vulnerable adults across a range of settings, such as in their own home with homecare, equipment or telecare, within shared living or residential care, delivery of mental health services, our neighbourhood teams, leisure centres, theatres and museums, neighbourhood response teams, support for domestic violence and anti-social behaviour.
Children & Young People £85m (not schools) - this includes school improvement, youth centres, children’s centres, protect children at risk, fostering and adoption, residential care, special needs assessments and school transport.
Regeneration & Environment £82m - this includes street cleaning, highways and drainage, licensing and environmental health, bins and recycling, managing all aspects of planning, housing, major projects such as the new Civic and Cultural Quarter, the markets and promoting Doncaster as a place for business to locate to and tourists to visit.
Finance & Corporate Services £45m - this includes customer service centres, libraries, payment of benefits, elections and supporting councillors as well as many of the internal services we need to run the council such as payroll, human resources, finance and legal.
Other Services £9m
THESE LISTS ARE NOT EXHAUSTIVE BUT GIVE YOU AN IDEA OF JUST WHAT WE SPEND AND WHERE
OTHER SERVICES
List of other major public facing services and their costs
- Bin collection and recycling £8m
- Funerals and maintaining churchyards £1m
- Keeping the streets clean and cleaning up after fly tippers £3m
- Fixing street lights £1m
- Parking £2m
- Abandoned vehicles & environmental enforcement £0.5m