South Lakeland District Council has revealed the first wave of services to be hit by its serious shake-up in the same week it announced a further £270,000 blow to its fragile finances.
Tourist Information Centres, pest control, land charges and economic development are among eight areas to be put under scrutiny as part of a radical review of services to cut costs and ensure value for money.
In a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, cabinet considered several options for the future of some of the 15 services that will be looked at by spring 2006 and may result in redundancies. These included removing "a layer of management" from TICs, which would see around three staff redeployed and new ways of providing the service maybe from hotels or going into partnership with other providers like the Lake District National Park Authority.
Pest control, which currently has two staff, could team up with Lancaster City Council's service and the response maintenance team (who carry out minor repairs) may be disbanded and amalgamated into the recycling team.
The options for each service will be considered by the overview and scrutiny committee on November 28.
On the same day the authority revealed that it had an "extremely worrying" £270,000 overspend on services that could wobble its financial plan to claw back £2 million over the next three years.
SLDC chief executive Mike Jones conceded that the revelation was a further blow to the struggling authority.
"This is a new factor in our budgets. It will not effect this first round of service reviews, but it may put the council in a position where we have to make some very hard decisions to balance the budget."
In a report to cabinet, Jack Jones, SLDC's strategic director (resources), said "This (£270,000 overspend) is extremely worrying as it suggests inherent budgetary problems beyond those anticipated in the medium term financial plan."
He added: "The areas of overspending must be examined and, if necessary, challenged to prove that budget holders can manage their budgets," he said. "The effect on the 2006/07 prospects is extremely damaging and action needs to be taken to minimise that damage on an already tough budget round."
He said part of the problem was a shortfall in car parking income which could mean that potential changes to the tariff structure do not go ahead.
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