FUTURE EALING
Future Ealing is
about making things
better at a time of
government funding cuts.
Deborah Dickey explains
how a team of experts is
helping the council spend
in a smarter way – and
how this is protecting
frontline services.
P
ublic sector organisations
have a duty to get the best
value for money for tax
payers, and Ealing Council
is no exception.
Over the last 10 years, the council’s
government funding has been cut by
64%. Or, put another way, for every
£1 the council used to receive, it
now gets just 36p. At the same time,
demand is increasing for its services,
especially among
vulnerable adults
and children.
CONTRACTS
AND SAVINGS
The council
has responded
by looking at
everything it does – and
that has included bringing in a new
team of commercial experts with a
wealth of up-to-date knowledge on
contract negotiation and large-scale
buying. And it is starting to pay off.
In fact, just three months into the
financial year, the council had already
saved £3.7million by late June. It was
a target it had not expected to achieve
until March 2020.
6
around ealing Autumn 2019
Buying
better
This has involved finding ways
to reduce costs but also by making
contracts work more efficiently; in other
words, getting more for less. And the
team is on track to save even more.
It has managed to slice off almost
£2million by renegotiating or changing
contracts. Added to these have been
a whole raft of smaller savings.
It is all part of the council’s
Future Ealing programme,
to help make the borough a
better place to live and work by
finding a way to achieve the best
results and protect critical services
at a time of smaller budgets.
PROTECTING FRONTLINE
Councillor Bassam Mahfouz, cabinet
member for finance and leisure, said:
“The more we save in this way, the
more it helps to protect the frontline
services that our most vulnerable
residents depend on the most.
“We are doing more than just
looking at existing contracts. We are
also making sure that we get the best
value for money we can when we
enter in to new ones and using our
buying power to grow apprenticeship
opportunities and be as green as we
can. And we are looking to see how
we can raise money in other ways by
selling our team’s expertise to other
councils and public bodies.”
IN NUMBERS
£3.7 million saved so far in
2019/20
61 contracts worth a total of
£150million reviewed