Efficiency savings are there for the taking, with every pound saved meaning one pound more for frontline highways and transport services.
As Hertfordshire County Council reports, while efficiencies have been delivered for a number of years, a review has found a further £4.1m in savings in highways services alone, or 10% of the authority's revenue budget for highways. Operational improvements, management reductions and increases in income have all contributed to this impressive saving.
However, despite these efforts, the county's leadership wants more savings to be found. With the highways service set to be re-procured, cabinet member Cllr Stuart Pile wants all possible ways of securing better delivery to be considered.
This political imperative comes as councillors are given stark choices on frontline service cuts. Despite the efficiencies that will be made, the county faces a corporate budget blackhole of at least £42m, and possibly £92m. This could mean that the county council re-trenches to core provision, providing the minimum necessary to allowing safe passage of its roads. The doom-laden scenario would see an acceleration of the deterioration of its roads and switching off street lights outside pedestrian areas.
Should the politicians decide they want a better-than-minimum highways service, "above bronze" in the officers' report, there would be more funding for cyclical maintenance: clearing gullies, maintaining signs and lines: items important for ensuring safe use of the roads. But that would mean bigger cuts elsewhere.
The bus subsidy budget could be trimmed by nearly £2.4m with little impact on rural services, cutting those that are nice-to-haves rather than life-lines, the evening and Sunday services. Further cuts would mean a watering down of what the council defines as transport "need" in rural areas.
So where can still more savings be found to stop the dreaded salami-slicing of services? Hertfordshire is going through a re-procurement, so can fundamentally challenge the way services are currently delivered. Further outsourcing, including of highways development control services, is on the table. It'll be interesting to see if they can pull off a transformation that'll mean the cuts are not as bad as first spelt out.
The Efficiency Network is the next step in Local Transport Today's campaign to bring our extensive network of professionals the essential business intelligence required to deliver more with less.
