Three councils sharing services

Leader of the Council, Sir Merrick Cockell reflects on the impact of a new era for public finances.

I have served Kensington and Chelsea as a councillor for getting on 25 years now and I am part of a large group of councillors and officers that has built up the standards of our services to a point where we can credibly claim to be amongst the best councils in Britain.

But now the state of our national economy threatens our ability to continue to grow and improve. In fact the public finances are in such a mess that unless the Coalition Government gets a grip on them, we might soon face an Irish or Greek style meltdown.

In getting that grip the Government has had to reduce local government grants. Local government accounts for about 20 per cent of all public spending and with the NHS budget protected, the truth is we had to take our share.

So over the next four or five years Kensington and Chelsea is going to have to find some £50 million, through a combination of savings and increased income.

• For an in-depth account see the Council’s budgetary position).

Fortunately we have a strategy for finding that money. That strategy includes consolidating our staff into fewer buildings so that the surplus can be let or sold. It involves judicious use of our carefully husbanded reserves and most dramatically it means combining the management of services with two neighbouring authorities

• Read about our Tri-borough proposals in more detail

Tri-borough working, as we call it, should yield at least £10 million worth of savings each year and that will mean that more of our services, and indeed more of our jobs, will survive intact than would otherwise be the case if we tried to soldier on alone.

But Tri-borough working won’t be painless or easy. And neither will it be a complete answer to that £50m black hole. So the final piece of our austerity strategy will be spending reductions. With our budget proposals for 2011/12 [PDF] (file size 143Kb)  I believe we have made a genuinely intelligent start to reducing our spending. Our proposals will leave the “must haves” of high quality services in place, but in the years ahead there may still be much tougher decisions to be taken.

Altogether our strategy is an attempt to get in shape for a new era, one of municipal austerity. But austerity isn’t quite the same thing as parsimony. So we are not going to start acting as if all spending is wasteful or wicked. Nor are we going to set aside our ambitions for Kensington and Chelsea.

But here’s the rub: how do we keep things improving when the tide of government money is on a prolonged ebb. The truth is that I don’t as yet have a precise answer to that, but I do have a strong hunch for where we might find one.

There are huge changes on the way. Yes the Council will have less money. But there will be large new service delivery units spread across the three boroughs, and to some extent across the local NHS as well. These units will be experimental, working in new ways, both with, and perhaps even as mutuals and other social enterprises. Things will be very different.

There are also radical changes to local democracy in the pipeline, with opportunities for well organised neighbourhoods to have a distinctive say and influence over what happens in their area. There will be new opportunities for individuals, groups, and neighbourhoods to take hold of assets and services and run them better, and indeed to create new ones.

There are huge infrastructural changes on the way. Highspeed 2 just to the north of the Northern tip of the borough will in time bring the Midlands within just an hour’s reach.

If we can get a Crossrail station at Kensal, it will bring opportunities to the east and west of us within easy reach of disadvantaged residents in North Kensington. That station might also be the trigger for a development of the massive old gas works site.

Earl’s Court is set to be fundamentally redeveloped and so too is the western side of Warwick Road where we will soon see a new primary school on part of the Charles House site.

The Council has built a new academy in Chelsea, the new Holland Park School will soon be completed. St Mary’s and Middle Row primary schools are also to be rebuilt. Wornington Green is being entirely redeveloped and we are moving forward with our plans for a new academy and leisure centre for North Kensington.

There really is so much happening. Out of this vibrant period of change we might still see a better borough for tomorrow, the key ingredients of course will be you, our own residents. In this new era, the local state is going to be that bit smaller and local residents will need to fill the space.

Your views on how the borough should develop are important.

Comments sent in

1. On 15 February Frank wrote: I assume that the Council will take note of the Prime Minister's suggestion that Local Governments should have a serious look at the CEO's and Manager's salaries, before cutting front line services. A serious overhaul of the salaries paid to those on the Horton Street Gravy Train is long overdue.  The recent payment of Performance Bonuses  to TMO Managers is simply obscene, when a great number of projects is now cancelled.   Response from Sir Merrick Cockell on 18 February: I am pleased to say we are ahead of the Prime Minister on this. Over the last three years we have taken out fifteen per cent of management costs, over £3 million, and we have just published our Tri-borough proposals that will involve a substantial reduction in managers as we share many services across three boroughs. Very soon we will share a Chief Executive with Hammersmith and Fulham (we already share a Legal Director and other posts). I will pass on your views to the CEO of the TMO but the TMO is an independent organisation and is and must be accountable for itself, to the borough tenants and leaseholders who collectively own it.