Overview
Croydon Council provides services to more than 386,000 people. We know how much you rely on us, and how important it is that we spend your money wisely. We are now facing an unprecedented financial challenge with a £64.2m budget gap next year and although we have taken significant steps to address this, we need to do more.
Our absolute priority is to provide the everyday services that we all rely on and, if times get tough, to be there when you need us. To do that, we need to live within our means. We are committed to offering the value for money and quality of care that our residents need and expect.
From collecting the bins to keeping our streets clean and safe, and protecting our most vulnerable residents, we will deliver essential services and deliver them well. Most of the council’s money – 57% – goes on supporting and protecting children and adults who need our help, with the rest on other local services like collecting your bins, leisure, libraries and looking after parks. We will still continue to do these things, but we have to make significant savings and we will concentrate our efforts where they make the biggest difference for people in Croydon.
To do this, we will change the way we work. We are completely clear that this will be hard: in the current financial climate it is not possible to carry on as we are, and so some services will stop and others will change. Before we set our budget next February, we want to hear your views on changes we are proposing. This will help us to understand any impact on you and we want to hear any other ideas you might have. Some of the proposals are ready, some of them need more work and others, such as changes to libraries, require full public consultation which we will carry out early next year. Feedback from this engagement will inform those future consultations and you will still be able to give your views in more detail as part of that process.
We aren’t going to fix our financial problems overnight – we are at the beginning of a three-year savings programme, and there will be some difficult decisions to make. That’s why we want to be clear about what we need to do, to work with all our staff, residents and partners and keep you informed and involved every step of the way. This is the start of a conversation and we very much hope you will take part.
Waste and recycling
We will collect your bins and concentrate on offering a good, efficient kerbside waste and recycling collection service. Most households now have two 240-litre wheelie bins to make it easier to recycle more from their doorstep. This means we could reduce the number of household reuse and recycling centres in the borough from three to two.
Parks and open spaces
We are proud of our 127 parks and open spaces and we will prioritise keeping them clean and safe. We will reduce the amount we spend by having a single maintenance team, stopping bedding schemes and extending our ‘meadowing’ approach to grass-cutting. We’ll also be talking to local groups about how we can spend less on maintaining facilities such as bowling greens. Read more about what the could mean for our parks here.
Sports and leisure centres
Libraries
Since bringing our libraries in-house we have invested significantly in this service, upgrading the IT equipment and broadband, and our members can now access six million books through our membership of the libraries consortium. This includes 41,000 e-books, newspapers, magazines and training materials and in the last few months we’ve seen a major shift in the way people access this service and use our digital collections, with 800 new online members in April alone. As part of our savings proposals we are considering reducing the number of library buildings from 13 to eight – but before we make any decisions we will carry out a full public consultation. The Libraries consultation is live from 14 January – 7 March. Have your say here.
Children's services
With 93,000 under-18s, young people are a priority for Croydon and in March our services for children and families were rated ‘good’ by Ofsted. We will focus on supporting families to stay together, helping those in need as early as possible. We are reviewing the way we deliver services and will make some changes, including redesigning our children’s centre model.
Adult social care
We will protect vulnerable adults as a priority and support them to live full, healthy lives as independently as possible, meeting all of our duties under The Care Act. We will continue to work in partnership with the NHS and others, listening to residents to provide joined-up health and care. To bring our spending in line with other authorities, we will review placement costs, contracts and accommodation, and increase the use of Direct Payments to enable people to have more choice and control. We will continue to invest in our dedicated workforce to deliver quality services locally and invest in new and improved digital solutions to enable people to do more for themselves.
Supporting our businesses
We will be here for our local businesses, with an immediate focus on supporting them through the Covid-19 pandemic, and we will continue to work in partnership to support and promote successful high streets and drive economic renewal. We want our residents and businesses to be the first to benefit from our borough’s growth, and we will work with education, training and employment providers to ensure they can access the skills and jobs they need.
Communications
Keeping our residents informed and involved is more important to us than ever and throughout Covid-19 we have strengthened our networks across the community. We will use these networks and digital channels, such as our Your Croydon Weekly e-newsletter and website, to keep residents and partners up-to-date. To save money, we will stop publishing and distributing the Your Croydon quarterly magazine.