Lancashire County Council to consider further savings

Lancashire County Council’s cabinet is set to consider further savings of more than £11 million when it meets soon.

The savings have been proposed following a review of service budgets. If agreed, the total value of savings during this financial year is over £81 million.

However the council’s financial position remains extremely challenging, with a forecasted funding gap of £144.492 million in 2021/22.

The funding gap for this financial year is forecasted as £48.886 million.

Geoff Driver, leader of Lancashire County Council, said: “In common with every council in the country we are having to make difficult decisions about how we use our resources while ensuring the books are balanced.

"We are absolutely committed to funding the services that we know people value. We have done that with our programme of reopening libraries, investing in good quality roads, and supporting bus services across the county.

"However the county council's financial situation is very challenging and one of our key priorities is to create a more financially stable council that will enable us to future-proof our improvements to critical services for the most vulnerable in our communities.

"These proposals have identified significant savings all of which will now be carefully considered by cabinet.

"Going forward we will need to make more savings but we are working hard to protect front-line services services especially for safeguarding children and other vulnerable members of society.”