ANYTHING and everything will be up for discussion by Daventry district councillors in the coming months to try and solve the authority's budget crisis.
At the council’s strategy group meeting on Thursday last week, the committee was told the global financial crisis means the authority is facing a multi-million pound blackhole.
Predicted deficits for 2009/2010 have jumped nearly 10 fold from £195,
000 to £1,819,000, mainly due to loss of income from investments.
Although the shortfall can be met from the council’s reserves, those will dry up by 2014.
The committee was told ‘root and branch’ analysis of the services offered by the council and its organisational structure was necessary to find a way through the problem.
Council leader Chris Millar said: “This isn’t a time for panic as we’ve been good housekeepers and we can manage in the short term.
“But you can’t ignore the problem. There needs to be some radical thinking required here and we need to have that discussion.”
The council’s portfolio holders and leading officers are set to have a meeting later this month to discuss possible strategies to solve the problem.
Ian Pasley-Tyler, the council’s resources portfolio holder, said: “There’s no current ideas in place that could made a serious dent in this deficit.
“It’s something all members have to think about very seriously. We need to do something. This council would be effectively bust by 2012/2013, which also happens to be unlawful as well.”
Officers were told to prepare a series of ‘all options’ reports for the meeting, which could include efficiency savings or breaking the historic link between council tax increases and the falling retail price index and instead sticking to a rise of 4.5 per cent.
Councillors were warned not to slip into thinking in terms of cutting services to save money, but rather to think of what services they wanted to provide and to find a way to help deliver them.
One way to save money is for the council to work in partnership with other authorities.
At the same meeting the councillors backed an agreement between Daventry District Council (DDC) and Northamptonshire County Council that should hopefully lead to the two working together in key areas. DDC already has a similar agreement with South Northamptonshire Council.
