Cornwall Council is set to cut hundreds of jobs and take an axe to services as it faces more austerity and budget cuts of £196million over four years.

The council said that the early budget was aimed at protecting the needs of the most vulnerable whilst doing what it can to preserve essential services such as public transport and road repairs and maintenance.

The budget will also see council tax increased by 1.97 per cent, just under the threshold which would require the council to ask the public in a referendum.

No cuts were made to the number of councillors or their expense to taxpayers, despite, acording to the Conservative group leader on the council saying there had been nineteen "focus groups" , and no efficiencies yet made and almost none proposed.

Councillors voted by 69 votes to 21 with 19 abstentions to set a budget of £496.499m for 2015 / 2016.

The council says that setting next year’s budget and council tax now rather than in February 2015 will enable savings to be made earlier and will save the Council around £7m to £9m.

This decision, which will involve making savings of £58.8m over the next twelve months. The proposal, which needs to be formally ratified by the full Council in February, will mean an annual increase of£25 for a Band D property – or 48p per week. 

Council Leader John Pollard said“I put this budget forward to the Council with some pride in what we have achieved in very difficult circumstances., but no joy, with little pleasure and, in many ways, some reluctance. However we clearly have no choice. The context of this budget is not of our making, and faced with exceptional and unprecedented demands this is the best possible budget proposal for Cornwall.

“By aligning this Budget to a Business Plan and a long term Strategy we are fulfilling my personal demand that we do not just cut and destroy, but we change and build. The premise of this budget is that although all areas will face reduction, we will, and have, salvaged everything we can.

“I believe this is the best budget for Cornwall that we could produce under the difficult financial position forced upon us by the Government.”

Calling the scale of the savings required "unprecedented" the council says that all areas of the Council are affected by the proposals. However, rather than simply "salami slice" every service, the authority has developed a four year plan which will "help protect the three key priority areas identified by the public and Members during last year’s budget consultation".

These are listed as services for the most vulnerable in society (including vulnerable adults, children, older people and the poorest), public transport, and road repairs and maintenance.

Over the past three months the Council has carried out the most extensive public consultation exercise in its history to give local residents, businesses, partners and staff the opportunity to have their say on where they felt cuts and savings could be made and to come forward with suggestions for increasing income.

 The main changes to the original budget proposals include:

• Increasing the Adult Social care budget by £3.8m to cover the previous year’s overspend thereby protecting services to the most vulnerable.

• Reducing the level of savings required from the Discretionary Rate Relief scheme which provides business rate relief support for charities and non profit making organisations from £800,000 to £400,000 in 2017/2018. This will help minimise the impact on charities and clubs which work with the most vulnerable people in Cornwall

• Protecting the rural bus network which helps local residents to access education, employment and social activities across Cornwall

• Reducing the funding to voluntary and community organisations by £400,000 to reflect the work which is taking place to reduce duplication and operating costs by sharing staff and buildings, develop a new way of commissioning services and the potential for funding from the Government’s £320m Transformation Challenge Fund.

• Increasing the efficiency savings and income from Community Safety by £413,000 • Delaying the implementation of the School Crossing Patrols savings to enable a comprehensive risk assessment to be carried out.

• Increasing savings from waste budget by £210,000 over the four years mainly from additional income from the energy to waste contract but with some reduction to the opening hours at Household Waste Recycling Centres.

• Through working in partnership with the RNLI we have agreed a new contract which will maintain the same level of lifeguard cover on the 57 beaches supported by the Council with a reduced contribution of £950,000.

• Increasing savings from the Transport and Waste budget by £324,000 in 2017/2018. This will be delivered by savings from the development of an integrated transport network for Cornwall and improvements from vestment from the Government’s Growth Deal

• Additional £1.7m savings from the pay bill as the result of collective agreement in relation to contribution related pay

• Using reserves to support the budget to allow time for the significant structural changes to be implemented and new models of service delivery to be developed. In particular this will allow additional time to work with local communities and town and parish councils to develop alternative models for libraries and help the private sector to develop a sustainable model for the tourism promotion activities led by Visit Cornwall over the longer term.