THE INTERVIEW: Sleepless nights for council leader charged with saving millions

By Theo Cronin

Within three months of Louise Goldsmith becoming leader of West Sussex County Council in May 2010 she was tasked with the unenviable challenge of securing £79M worth of savings.

David Cameron’s coalition government had come to power, and local authorities nationwide were facing year on year reductions in their budgets, compounded by a decree not to raise council tax.

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Difficult decisions had to be made, and West Sussex embarked on an unprecedented programme of restructuring, redesign and reformation.

Under Labour the council had repeatedly warned it had been forced to trim all the fat from its operations - now it said it must cut into the bone.

Three years later, and after a slew of controversial decisions that have enabled the authority to save £60M to date, I asked Mrs Goldsmith if West Sussex County Council is now just a hacked skeleton of its former self?

“No, I don’t think it is, but it is very very focused on what we do,” she responded, keen to explain how the council has moved to more of a commissioning and enabling role to facilitate the multi-million pound reduction in expenditure.

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It has been a ‘difficult’ period which ‘presented some really big challenges’ she said, before adding ‘the great thing is we have actually protected 80 per cent of front line services’.

In December 2010, as the council consulted on its extensive savings programme, I had also met with Mrs Goldsmith who at the time would not be drawn on redundancies, but a series of other ‘r’ words had littered the conversation, many of which would eventually translate into lost council jobs.

Children’s Homes, Community Libraries, and Office Services were to be ‘reviewed’, senior management ‘re-structured’, the Fire and Rescue Service and Library Service ‘re-designed’, many teams ‘re-configured’, services ‘rationalised’, and across the board budgets ‘reduced’.

Nearly three years later, with the council employing 1,200 fewer people, I asked the newly re-elected leader, who represents Chichester West, what had proved the most difficult decision to take?

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“I think the big one was moving the eligibility criteria,” she said, referring to the controversial move which stopped those with ‘moderate’ needs receiving care support from the Adult Services department, in favour of just those with ‘substantial’ or ‘critical’ care needs.

“We spent an awful lot of time doing that and trying to do it as smoothly as possible,” she said.

This was a prime example where West Sussex County Council restricted its services to what is statutorily required of local authorities, stripping away ‘optional’ or ‘nice to have’ services. However, it did introduce My Network and My Network Plus to mitigate the impact for some adults with learning difficulties.

Removing care for those with ‘moderate’ needs prompted significant public outcry, not least from the Don’t Cut Us Out campaign, which was vociferous in attacking the council’s position.

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At the height of its campaigning, West Sussex County Council even took the unusual position of refusing to comment on issues raised with the local media.

Who had taken that decision and why? “We had a long dialogue, we had stated our position, and we just felt we had explained our position and all we were going to do was keep gong over the same ground,” said the leader.

“The challenge has always been, why don’t you use your reserves to fund this shortfall? And of course yes we do have reserves, but if we had actually used our reserves we’d have run out of money.

“If we did that we wouldn’t have been able to get the £8.25M to invest in all the road and drainage schemes that we just did in December.”

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Mrs Goldsmith said she understood the anguish and upset the move had created, especially for parents, who she said will always fight for their children.

Had she had many sleepless nights as a result? “It has been tough, and yes I have had a lot of sleepless nights and I do worry about things.

“I want to make things right and I want us to be a really good county, offering value for money and delivering services and building strong self-reliant communities.”

Mrs Goldsmith went on to outline what she believes is a key distinction between the Conservatives and Labour.

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“Labour bills big state and it bills dependency, and people say the state will do it, and its always proved the state can never afford to do everything,” she said.

“We as Conservatives believe in self reliance but I also believe that we have to help people.

“But actually the talent, the skills, and the interests in the community in building strong harmonious communities is what the council’s about now – investing to help them to help themselves is what we should be doing.

“And that is the clear line between both of us. It is small state, but it is not so small you’re not doing anything.

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“It could be small but creative, and helping those communities.

“That is where I’d like to be.”

Examples of this philosophy included community grants amounting to £750,000 this year for a variety of initiatives including lunch clubs, whereas examples of creativity included the birth of the country’s largest social enterprise, Aspire, from the ashes of the now defunct Adult Education Department, as well as using community asset transfers to enable communities to run community centres, such as the Holbrook Club in Horsham.

“We are investing in communities to make them more vibrant,” said Mrs Goldsmith, who confirmed such initiatives confirm West Sussex will continue to deliver more than just what is required by statute of the local authority.

“We are very traditional Conservatives here, but we do believe in strong communities, and they can deliver so much more than we can, so we will help our residents in that area.”

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She stated the council now has three policy areas of focus; Start of Life; the Economy; and Later Life - into which a plethora of services, policies, departments and third party organisations will feed.

Mrs Goldsmith congratulated her staff for their innovation and their help in forging new working practices, and despite unprecedented local strike action earlier this year and concerns over increased workload and stress, she said morale remained ‘good’.

Was she proud of what has been achieved during the three years she has led the council? “I think how we have managed the savings has been good,” she answered.

“We’re in a situation where there isn’t money and you’ve got to make the best of what you’ve got and you can only cut your coat according to your cloth, and we haven’t got a lot of cloth.”

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And what cloth the council has could be trimmed further once the Government’s comprehensive spending review and its impact on the Department of Communities and Local Government is announced in the coming weeks.

With 26 per cent of West Sussex’s budget derived from Westminster, Mrs Goldsmith admitted it was an ‘anxious’ wait to see if this would be reduced further, but she reiterated ‘we’ve just got to work with what we’ve got’.

“But I think we will end up having to save more money again,” she predicted.