Dudley Council saves millions due to vacant jobs, according to new figures
Dudley Council saved nearly £4m by not paying wages for its vacant jobs according to the latest figures.
A report for a meeting of the council’s cabinet on June 19 shows where savings are being made as ruling Conservative councillors celebrate a boost to depleted reserves.
Dudley Council leader, Councillor Patrick Harley, announced the authority had saved £14m and was putting £17m into reserves.
Councillor Harley said: “We have turned the corner in getting our finances back on track as well as boosting our reserves. We will continue to do this year on year as it can only strengthen our financial position and improve our resilience for future challenges.”
The council report shows:
The Finance and Legal department saved £800,000 due to staff vacancies
Environment saved £670,000 for the same reason
Vacancies in Housing saved £617,000
Recreation and Enterprise made ‘savings within staffing’ of £900,000
Health and Wellbeing’s underspend of £500,000 was due to staff vacancies
The Chief Executive’s Department also underspent by £500,000 due to staff vacancies although some of that amount was classed as ‘non-pay efficiencies’
The £14.4m saving was 91 percent of the planned £15.8m the council intended to save in the 2024/25 budget due to overspends in Adult Social Care from pressures in Mental Health Supported Living and Dudley Disability Services totalling £6m which was offset by savings in other areas including staff vacancies.
Children’s Services also registered an overspend of £3.8m due to the number of external residential placements for children in care.
The council coffers also benefitted from higher than expected dividends paid out on its investments in Birmingham airport and lower than expected interest payments on debt.
Together the two cash boosts were worth a total of £8.1m.
The amount counted as going into reserves also includes £4.3m which is was expected to be taken out but was not needed.
The extra cash going into reserves will boost the council’s rainy day funds to £28.9m which is eight percent of its predicted income for the current financial year.
The average reserves as a proportion of income for metropolitan councils like Dudley is around 20 percent and Dudley plans to continue adding £5m per year for the next five years to increase the amount held in reserve.
The report says the council will need to get reserves up to around £100m to be at the average for similar authorities.
