Thank you to everybody who submitted questions for the live webinars ‘The council we need to be’.
There were lots of similar questions, so we have started by grouping these into themes and answering the most common questions together.
Some questions were more specific, or more information is needed to be able to answer them fully.
We will continue to work through any questions we get and keep this page updated.
Please continue to submit your questions using the webform.
What is our financial position?
Councils all over the country are under financial pressure, with up to one in five reportedly at risk of declaring a section 114 notice.
Like other councils, our challenge has come from higher demand for services, especially ones used by our most vulnerable residents, including adults and childrens’ social care and housing. The cost of delivering these services has also risen due to high rates of inflation over a long period.
In Shropshire, our challenge is even bigger because of our rural geography and a population with more complex care needs.
In 2024/25, we have a savings target of £62.5m. If we are not able to realise this total, and if demand continues to grow, we currently project we could be over budget by £38m by the end of the year
I have heard different figures in speculation about our budget – what is accurate?
Speculation that our budget gap is around £100m is inaccurate because this figure double counts part of our savings plans. The important thing for us to focus on is the forecast overspending of £38m. We have a track record of reducing our projected overspending by the end of the financial year, by tracking our progress and putting plans in place.
We have committed to publishing monthly reports for cabinet for transparency on our financial position and this will include regular communications for colleagues.
Will the new government provide additional funding?
At the moment, there is no clear message from the new government that immediate financial support will be available for local councils. Our budget for this year has been legally agreed by Council and we must continue with our plans. Legally, we need to keep within a balanced budget this year
We don't know what challenges or opportunities lie ahead but can prepare by becoming the modern, sustainable and efficient council we need to be.
We will continue to lobby for funding reform to take account of the challenges we face, along with councils all over the country.
Why do we need to resize the council – can't we make savings in other ways?
Resizing the council is only one part of plans to bring budget into balance, as we legally must.
Other plans include managing demand for services, reducing spending with third parties, reviewing assets to reduce running costs and increasing our income.
Many of these plans are now underway, including a proposed new charge for garden waste and reduction in opening hours for household recycling centres.
How much of the planned savings will come from resizing?
We have always said that there would be difficult decisions and we must become a smaller organisation, with fewer people, to ensure financial survival in exceptionally challenging circumstances
The latest budget and workforce information, along with greater than expected demand pressures in this year, mean we now expect the total workforce reduction to be around 540 full time equivalent posts in order to achieve resizing savings of £27m in this financial year when salary, pensions and other oncosts have been considered.
This does not mean 540 redundancies.
The first step to resizing was our voluntary redundancy programme, and the resulting senior management restructure. We are also removing non-essential vacant posts and reviewing our spending on agency staff. This will all help to minimise any compulsory redundancies we will need to make.
Keeping the number of compulsory redundancies to a minimum and making resizing savings by any other means is our priority.
How much of the £27m resizing savings target has been identified through steps already taken?
At the moment, we are working through figures as part of our period 3 financial monitoring reports and will be able to update more on this when these are published for Cabinet in September 2024.
How many voluntary redundancy applications were approved?
In March 2024, we opened a VR window which saw 200 applications.
In the first instance, 90 were approved, including from senior managers. A number of applications needed further consideration and this has been ongoing during our service reviews.
These applicants have recently had an email to update them on the status of their application, this means that the number of approved applications is still likely to increase
Will voluntary redundancy be offered again?
We expect to formally open up applications again from the end of this month. The process for applying will be the same as last time.
This time, however, the programme will remain open and applications will be considered on an ongoing basis at the next appropriate workforce board and then moderated by executive directors.
We will communicate everything you need to know through email, intranet and cascade message when the programme reopens.
How soon will we learn the outcome of service reviews?
At the moment, service reviews are still ongoing. These are taking place as a series of workshops attended by assistant directors, senior managers and service managers. Our transformation partners, PwC, are supporting these sessions with their experience of carrying out this activity in many other councils that have then gone on to achieve their transformation ambitions.
The first stage is scheduled to be complete by the end of July. Following this, the outcomes will be brought together and moderated by executive directors. We are aiming to have an initial view of the outcomes before the autumn.
When will I know if I could be made redundant?
Compulsory redundancies are a very last resort – we are doing everything we can to minimise any we will need to make. This is why we have been taking the time to take every other resizing step first; voluntary redundancy, restructuring our senior management, removing vacancies and reviewing agency spending.
We anticipate that any consultation on redundancies arising from service reviews will begin as the outcomes become known.
Whilst we are in exceptionally challenging circumstances, we need to use the time we have available to make sure we can do the right jobs in the right way as a resized organisation; the council we need and can afford to be.
How much notice will those being made redundant be given?
If a post has been identified for risk of redundancy, the post holder will be given as much notice as possible, in line with their contractual terms and conditions and statutory entitlements. For most posts, this is between 1-3 months and can be found in a contract of employment.
We will provide support and guidance, working closely with our trade unions and employee representatives to ensure a fair and transparent process.
Redundancy is always a last resort and we will try to minimise the impact on our staff and services as much as we can.
What wellbeing support is available?
We know this is an unsettling time for colleagues and want to make sure you know where support is available.
The health and wellbeing pages on the intranet have resources and contact details for a wider range of support. Please explore these and make use of them if you need to. This is available for everybody.
There will soon be an employee resizing toolkit available with more information, we will provide this to all staff.
We’ve heard about a new model for the council. What is this and when will it be introduced?
After we have taken the steps we need to take to ensure immediate financial survival, we need to achieve longer term financial sustainability.
Our priority is to emerge from our challenge as the modern, efficient and sustainable council we need to be.
A healthy organisation, doing the right jobs in the right way, to deliver the ambitions of The Shropshire Plan. The animation below describes the model of the council we need to be.
Our evolution to the council we need to be will continue over a period of months and years.
What does resizing mean for people who have fixed term contracts?
There are a number of reasons for fixed-term contracts and each will have its own circumstances.
It is difficult to confirm at this stage whether fixed-term contracts will end, continue or be renewed. It will depend on the individual role.
This was considered in the establishment control work, which was a detailed review of every role we have in the council, whether permanent, fixed-term or vacant.
The service level reviews taking place throughout July are helping shape the future needs of each service, and this may include decisions on whether fixed-term contracts will end or be extended.
If you have a fixed–term contract now, you will be kept up to date on this in the usual way – through communication with your line manager.
How will our resizing savings be divided between those with higher salaries and those with lower salaries?
Since we started our resizing plans, with the first round of the voluntary redundancy programme, it has been our priority to maximise the savings we can make through a senior management restructure.
This included a 20% reduction in the number of assistant directors before the end of the calendar year. There will be more changes to the senior management level still to come as exit dates are spread into the new year and beyond.
This will make up a significant portion of the resizing savings we need to make as these posts have the highest salaries.
Will “statutory services” be included in any resizing savings?
There is sometimes a misunderstanding of the term "statutory services" because everything we do can be traced back to one piece of legislation or another and so could be considered as “statutory”.
The important distinction is between services which fall into the category of mandatory duties and those that are discretionary powers.
Beyond that, we also need to consider the level at which a mandatory duty must be provided, something that is often set through national guidance
Mandatory duties include elements of social care, which support the most vulnerable people in our communities or services that everybody uses day-to-day.
Some of the services we deliver have a minimum statutory level, and we deliver above that level at the moment which means that there is some scope to reduce them.
Some of the services we deliver are discretionary powers and we have provided them until now because we are able to and we recognise the benefit they bring to our communities.
The service reviews that have been ongoing this month have been considering the appropriate level for all our services compared to the level we currently deliver and what we can afford to deliver in the future as a smaller council.
All services (mandatory and discretionary) have been included in these reviews, and we will share their outcomes before autumn.
We will continue to prioritise services for the people who need us most and find new ways to deliver these as efficiently as we can.
When does resizing have to be completed by in order to make the required saving?
£27m is the total of resizing savings we need to achieve as part of the overall savings plan, as set out in a previous slide.
Although this is the target for this financial year, many of the resizing steps won’t be taken until later in the year, which means they will only deliver partial savings in 2024/25. Further management action will need to be taken to find other savings during the year.
Budget holders have been given guidance about reducing all unnecessary spending.
It is important to take the time to make sure any resizing decisions we are taking are consistent with our plans to become the council we need to be to continue delivering The Shropshire Plan.
We will see the full year effect for all of the resizing steps we take from the next financial year onwards, helping us to become the financially sustainable council we need to be for the future.
Will agency staff be let go, or made permanent, before compulsory redundancies are made?
One of our resizing steps is to review our spending with agencies. We are aiming to recruit colleagues who do these jobs into our workforce instead because this is better for our budget. This also gives employment benefits to the people doing these jobs.
The roles we use agency staff for are often essential, looking after our most vulnerable residents, and recruitment for these roles is a challenge for councils all over the country. This includes social workers and care workers.
It is essential that we have people to do these jobs to fulfil our duties and some degree of agency use might be necessary until we can overcome the wider recruitment challenge we face for these services.
How will the expectations of the public and members be managed in terms of the service they should expect from a smaller organisation?
Communication, transparency and consultation.
We have been open and honest with our elected members and our communities ever since our budget challenge became clear.
Over 1,000 people responded to our budget consultation in December and January and 70% of people said they agreed with our approach to prioritising services.
We have been clear about the scale of our budget challenge and the difficult decisions we will need to make. Significant changes, like the new charge for garden waste and changes to household recycling centres, are going to public consultation and we are listening to all the feedback we get.
For household recycling centres, we changed our original plans based on the response to the survey and have found a way to keep all centres open with reduced hours.
In this financial year, we have committed to publishing monthly finance reports for Cabinet and communicating this with colleagues and the public, too.
This is so we can be focused and clear on our progress and any new challenges as they emerge.
How will we make the changes we need to make to become the sustainable council we need to be?
First and foremost, all the changes we make will be guided by The Shropshire Plan.
Many colleagues will be familiar with the Getting Leadership Right programme that has been ongoing for the past two years. This was the start of a complete redesign of the way we work. The challenge we are facing now doesn’t mean we stop the journey we are on, it makes it even more important that we continue to create an organisation that is fit for the future so we don’t find ourselves in such a challenging position again.
We are working with the experts who helped us develop the Getting Leadership Right programme on a complete rewiring of our organisational design and development to give us the people, performance, processes and technology to guarantee our success in the future.
We have had challenges before, but we have never been so focused on organisation-wide transformation to keep us on track so we can emerge as a healthy organisation to continue delivering the aims of The Shropshire Plan.
The benefits of this new capability include helping us achieve our strategic and transformational goals – a healthy organisation, people, economy and environment.
It will give us the tools to be more innovative, productive, engaged, and customer-focused.
It will develop our people to become more resilient, adaptable, and responsive.
It will also help us to become more digitally capable, commercially astute, financially savvy, and performance-enabled. It will promote the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of our workforce.
Despite the current circumstances, we must take the opportunity for us to redesign an organisation that is modern, efficient and sustainable.
You advise that voluntary redundancy will result in that post being deleted. If those staff, who have applied for voluntary redundancy, have their application rejected and then decide to leave anyway, will that post then be filled?
If a member of staff leaves voluntarily, not on redundancy terms, the post can be recruited to. As has always been the case, before any recruitment activity takes place, a review will be carried out by the line manager to ensure that the job description accurately reflects the requirements of the post to support the team and service delivery to meet the objectives of the Shropshire Plan.