	Consultation Torbay Council Town Hall Castle Circus Torquay TQ1 3DR
	consultation @torbay.gov.uk
	01803 208829 (tel)
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Budget Simulator

We are looking into the future and planning next years budget.

To tell us your views on where Torbay Council should be saving or spending money please spend a few minutes using the Budget Simulator.

Below are some of the comments your fellow residents have made.

Although these are severe cuts in services is it not possible to reduce the number of executive officers in the council which would reduce the payroll and save some money?

Children's Services, is everything essential, i.e. taxi rides to school?

Adult social care - massive budget, again, what's essential?

Waste & Cleaning - May Gurney will need all the money you can give them, so not a big cut!!! However, if you had gone in to partnership with Teignbridge, I'm sure you would have had a working system at a much lower cost.

Council Tax / Benefits merge at a County level - save millions HR/Payroll/IT/Legal (and all back office), merge at a County level

Don't cut library services - they are valued highly by older residents especially and provide online access for old and young who may not be able to afford this at home.

Involve the communities in keeping their areas clean, use more of the payback team in this, and other areas where applicable.

For cuts to be FAIR, they have to be the same across the board. I believe that any well run organisation can save up to 10%. This approach would save jobs, except for natural wastage and result in saving redundancy payments, reduction in the local taxes and less increase in benefits caused by unemployment.

The unions and employees must be consulted to agree a lowering of wages and salaries and all council contractors should be told they must agree a 10% decrease in contract prices or they will be black listed from the council contractors list.

It’s simple the Council has to cut its cost i.e. no overspend. Partnership might work and share resources

Shame to target the young and the old, but they're big spending areas. A bit extra for the other services could improve things like roads, etc.

1. Exploration of income generation, including charging for services such as fast-track planning, use of Library Internet, increased parking charges including residents' parking

2. The sub-contracting of some - or all - Council services to other providers either in the private, voluntary or social enterprise sectors. This, however, while offering short-term gains, would mean that revenue to the Bay would decrease when terms and conditions deteriorate as national pay bargaining ends

3. Ending duplication and multiple management fees when dealing with the voluntary sector. Imposing clear and measurable outcomes in line with LA objectives

4. Renegotiating contracts with suppliers as we are now in a 'buyers market'

5. Narrowing the pay gap between Council workers and officers. While this will recover relatively small amounts, this would be symbolic of 'everybody being in this together'

6. Moving towards a true partnership with local people to maximise the potential contribution of the Bay's residents. Undertake a Social Audit of individual and community capacity. This will mean a sea-change in attitudes, and will challenge vested interests and hierarchies. Equality & diversity good practice should be treated seriously and the Authority should act as a neutral broker to empower all members of all communities. This will entail moving away from any association with any specific faith or belief system. The Authority - at all levels - should welcome, and not deny or resist, social change. The Big Society means true inclusion and community ownership of the Bay's assets.

This is a good exercise but doesn’t tell us about Council debts: are there any and if so could they be rescheduled? And what about capital tied up in buildings? Does the Council still intend for example to take out a loan of some £31 million for a new Torquay Hub? And could the sale of Oldway etc be renegotiated? There is also a case for making money by letting out Council services to other public bodies and neighbouring Councils.

It seems to me the government have presented our council and us with a forgone conclusion. For cuts to be FAIR, they have to be the same across the board. I believe that any well run organisation can save up to 10%. This approach would save jobs, except for natural wastage and result in saving redundancy payments, reduction in the local taxes and less increase in benefits caused by unemployment. The unions and employees must be consulted to agree a lowering of wages and salaries and all council contractors should be told they must agree a 10% decrease in contract prices or they will be black listed from the council contractors list. When personnel retire or leave, all positions should be scrutinised with a view to their work being undertaken by existing personnel with a small increase in remuneration for the extra work if necessary. All capital expenditure and supplies must be rigorously scrutinised to keep purchases under strict control. THIS APPROACH WOULD BE SEEN TO BE FAIR AND CAUSE LESS ARGUMENTS IN OUR COMMUNITY WHILST ENSURING AN EQUAL SHARE IN THE REDUCTIONS IN SERVICE. NEVER MIND WHAT WESTMINSTER SAYS, BE BOLD TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT!!!

All sections will need to make or take cuts, some more than others. It seems that Children's Services (excl. schools) Adult Social Care and Housing will be protected so every other section will have to take greater cuts.

I think that all sections should make at least 5% which could probably be achieved by a more aggressive procurement strategy (spending more wisely) and some general belt tightening. After this the savings can far more easily be obtained by cutting the departments with the largest budgets. I was surprised how much is spent on adult social care and wonder whether the 'care in the community' ideology is really cost effective. After this, we should look at areas where we can increase revenue especially by getting more business rate income from businesses locating to the area. - Although the Kingskerswell by pass will probably need to be in place.

I feel that it is important that we spread the cuts across the whole council, but given that children & adults services are dealing with the most vulnerable in our community I think their budgets should be least affected. I think that community partnerships responsibility should be moved to the TDA as this would mean that as they look to regenerate the bay, they can have valuable input into this process. I think there could probably be a process efficiency & process flow review to look at how each department operates and impacts on each other, it is there that efficiencies and also the use of technology can reduce costs.

We need to develop the economy to bring prosperity to the Bay. There is a lot of waste in talking about policy and practices. Too many internal meetings preaching to the converted. Everything we do should be outward facing and either offer a service or a direct benefit to improving the economy for residents and businesses.

We need to develop the economy to bring prosperity to the Bay. There is a lot of waste in talking about policy and practices. Too many internal meetings preaching to the converted. Everthing we do should be outward facing and either offer a service or a direct benefit to improving the economy for residents and businesses.

Everyone should be expected to cut costs during this difficult time. Areas of development and progression should especially not be funded. Funding should be focused on keeping the core services going and protecting vulnerable children and adults.

I want all the services supplied by the council to continue as far as is possible with the exception of the TDA which seems not to provide any noticeable benefits. I am prepared to pay more council tax to enable this.

I would be very interested to know the allocations, in terms of percentages, for other unitary authorities. I am not proposing a reduction in a very emotive area such as Adult Social Care, but this seems to be about a third of our budget, which really surprises me. Why is this? I wonder if this is normal? Good luck!

Wage cuts may be necessary. Unlike JE, which left the high earners alone, I suggest a cut of 1% per £10,000 earned. So a person on £20,000 is cut by 2% and one on a £100,000 is cut by 10%. This is progressive and far more fair to the already underpaid, most of whom are far below the national average of £26,000-.

My budget reflects the high priority I put on social care and protecting the most vulnerable in Torbay. Clearly children's services need additional support (ofsted!) so I have increased this budget and I have frozen the budget for Adult Social Care. Unfortunately this means significant budget reductions in other areas and a modest increase in the council tax. There would have been areas that I would have liked to cut further (e.g. the TDA and corporate services) but the simulator would not let me!

There is a need to look at our spending by going back to the basics and then gradually adding as required

The proposed budget cuts will affect everyone, but we still need to invest in children’s future and protect the vulnerable. Cut backs on projects are a must however we should continue to keep the bay clean and relatively safe for residents.

I think it is essential at the moment (and in light of the recent ofsted inspection) that we protect children’s services, reducing money from early intervention will only come back to bite us later on.

We should have more influence over how the council spends it money, tools like this should be used to effect policy.

Times are hard - however important a service is, some savings have to be made.

Minimise impact of cuts on Services for the most vulnerable members of the community

The only way out of our budget mess is for every service to take a cut of some sort. Start by cutting those services high on management and interference in normal people's lives and lesser cuts for those providing real service and help to those in need. Stop all consultation with outside agencies which cost the earth. Instead ask your frontline service personnel who actually know what will work. Finally don't pay anybody who works or is in the council more than the Prime minister of the country. To do so is obscene greed.

All services should be cut by the same amount so that any cuts and/or redundancies are evenly spread across the council and not just in one area.

Concentrate on streamlining the basics. While it's nice to have 'vision' for the Bay and to talk about attracting new industry, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The holiday industry in this area is, and always has been, the major industry but due to a lack of investment, Torbay is lagging behind other resorts as our public areas are tired and run down.

Budget Simulator

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