THE leader of West Devon Borough Council has said that the forward thinking and partnership between the council and South Hams District Council will allow them to ‘take control of our own future’ following the announcement of less financial support from central government.

It was announced in the spending review that all local authorities will have their Local Government Grant phased out during this parliament.

All councils are funded through one main government grant, business rates and council tax, alongside smaller grants for specific things. George Osbourne confirmed yesterday that the main government grant will be phased out completely by 2020.  In West Devon this is a cut of £1.2million and for South Hams a cut of £1.4-million.

The two councils had anticipated such cuts to their funding and have already made preparations and changes to the way they work to prevent them having to cut vital services.

Over the last two years they have completely transformed how they work in order to deliver services that are more suited to their customers’ needs.  By planning strategically for a sound financial future the councils have been preparing for these funding cuts without cutting frontline services.

The leader of West Devon Borough Council, Cllr Philip Sanders said: ‘For many councils the news will deliver a devastating blow, but for some time now we have been looking to the future and developing a business model for local government that will enable us to generate income and take control of our own future. These plans are further supported today by the new powers given to local governments, which will give us more flexibility over how we spend our money.

‘Looking to the future, we believed that reducing the services that we offer customers was not an option and we still wanted to deliver good quality services to our customers, so we decided to completely change how we work. The changes are radical and both staff and councillors have needed to be flexible in their thinking and prepared to set aside procedures which have been in place for many years.’

Two years ago both councils, who have had a shared working arrangement for many years, embarked on their transformation programme. They anticipated a potential gap in their budgets of £4.7-million and a changing customer base who wanted to engage with the council in more flexible ways.

There will be further announcements in the coming months informing customers about new self service functions on the borough council website and both councils will provide opportunities for residents to learn how the new systems work, help them to open an account, report issues and ask questions about council services.

Keep up to date with changes to council services on Twitter @WestDevon_BC