FINANCE

Hoping to pack a much bigger punch

Delivering council-wide savings rather than micro services reductions is the order of the day, writes Tracie Langley - 'but if we get it right, our staff will find new energy in new skills as part of multi-functional teams'.

Like many finance directors across the world, I am feeling the pain of managing enormous financial uncertainty alongside remaining optimistic that we can sort it all out.

We feel the responsibility of the council's financial sustainability acutely, but being confident about the plan to make it right is a must. Like all other councils, Cornwall has a significant budget gap from 2021/22 onwards and we already had plans in place to plug that gap. The impact of the pandemic in those future years is almost unquantifiable, but what we are sure about is that the gap will be bigger, not smaller. So the plans we already had in place need to have bigger numbers attached to them.

What is difficult is that our teams have planned their cost reductions and we are now asking them to find more and deliver them even faster. This is a hard message.

Conversations about how we deliver wholescale council-wide savings rather than micro services reductions is order of the day and asking people to think about taking macro costs out of their spending plans, rather than the odd few thousand here or there, is really difficult.

We are concentrating this next year on three areas: reducing the number of people we employ through a post reduction programme, re-scoping and reducing every contract, and developing deeper intervention plans for all demand-driven services. At the same time we will be stitching together new processes through automation and realigning resources to outcomes that really matter. This may lead to some services being reduced and stopped, but if we get it right, our staff will find new energy in new skills as part of multi-functional teams.

As leaders, we have to give hope that we will come out a stronger organisation, smaller in size perhaps, but packing a much bigger punch.

Tracie Langley is interim chief operating officer and s151 at Cornwall Council

FINANCE

A story of smarter SEND funding

By Natalie Kenneison | 05 June 2025

Natalie Kenneison says that despite soaring SEND deficits, a quieter story of progress is unfolding that shows what’s possible when councils take a structure...

FINANCE

The cap doesn't fit

By Justin Griggs | 05 June 2025

Capping some or all parish and town councils would seriously threaten their effectiveness and undermine the broader agenda of devolution and community empowe...

FINANCE

Councils' watershed moment

By Martin Ford | 05 June 2025

Next week’s Spending Review will have huge implications for the future finances of local government. Martin Ford looks at what we know so far, and the key qu...

FINANCE

EXCLUSIVE: Reorganisation tax warning

By Dan Peters | 05 June 2025

Town and parish councils have warned ministers not to impose restrictions on their ability to raise tax amid talk of more being created under reorganisation.

Tracie Langley

Popular articles by Tracie Langley