Protecting the best we have

Published: 14 April, 2011

• TO protect as many front-line services as we can, decisions need to be made for the short, medium and long term to find savings to ensure the best of what we have survives.

One of these decisions, controversially, is to close and sell a number of older council offices and centralise staff and “contact points” in a new office in King’s Cross. In doing so we are investing to save in the future. 

At the moment residents are served by over 50 face-to-face access points and over 100 telephone numbers. Centralising calls and transactions in one place will save money which otherwise might have to be cut down the line. 

The council’s plans will also reflect services with 1,000 fewer staff, owing to budget cuts, and allow us to put online more of what we do.

The new site also makes good the planning benefits (otherwise unrealised) we won from developers in negotiating King’s Cross in 2006 – improving Camden’s offer with a new, modern public library and a public swimming pool. 

Our plans will actually reduce our office footprint, eventually lowering overheads and costly and unplanned repair bills on old offices. Savings generated here allow us to protect front-line services and free up capital to  invest in other priority projects, such as those schools currently so desperately short of BSF money.

Of course, we considered whether redeveloping the Town Hall Extension for our own use would be better value for money, but found after much research that it also requires disposal of just as many properties, and carries with it higher decanting costs (moving services in and out) and negatively impacts on the provision of services at a time of great change.   

While the amounts for any option to modernise services are indeed large, the estimated long-term savings generated substantially outweigh the costs of either the other options of extension redevelopment or a “do nothing” option. 

Camden needs to plan for the future – to ensure the services we are proud of delivering to residents are robust enough to survive this period of turmoil. Opposing cuts alone is not good enough for the next six years – we also need to develop solutions if we want to protect what we have. Investing in public service infrastructure is part of that.   

CLLR THEO BLACKWELL
Cabinet member for finance