COUNCILLORS will consider ‘innovative and ambitious’ plans being developed to tackle a £9million funding gap at a meeting today.

Members of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council management committee will discuss a report from Director of Resources Jason Vaughan on the authority’s budget for the next financial year and its ‘2020 Vision’.

The report states that by 2020 the council will be looking at funding reductions of around £9million a year from central government, which equates to around 18 per cent of its budget.

Mr Vaughan describes the situation as ‘extremely challenging’ and sets out the options that faced the council.

He said: “It is evident from this analysis that the ‘shape’ of the council and the way it operated had to radically change and the council will not be able to provide all of the services in the way in which they have been traditionally.

“The strategic choices were to either stop providing all services except for those things that the council was legally required to do or adopt a more innovative approach.”

Mr Vaughan continued in his report: “The council has chosen a more innovative and ambitious approach with the 2020 Vision being developed to reflect this.”

The 2020 Vision will see the council look at different ways of delivering services focusing on four major areas – economy, communities, environment and performance.

Mr Vaughan said that a ‘key element’ of the project was to see the council become financially independent and less reliant on ever reducing grants from government.

He said one area the council is often criticised for is not reducing its staffing costs. However, figures in the report show that there has been a 23.13 per cent reduction in the pay budget over the last four years and numbers of staff employed across Weymouth and Portland Borough Council and West Dorset District Council had reduced from around 850 to 550.

Further development of the partnership with West Dorset had seen a new management structure which had achieved savings of £525,000 in the current financial year and a three-year service review programme could see each council save around £1.2million.

Mr Vaughan said that no savings relating to the council moving out of its North Quay offices had yet been built into the financial plans but the impending sale of the Guildhall would provide funding to make improvements to the Mulberry Centre and Crookhill Depot, which will enable the vacation of the North Quay site.

In terms of the budget for the 2015/16 financial year, Mr Vaughan said there was currently a gap of around £241,000.

However, he said: “There are a number of areas where work is either currently being undertaken or we are waiting for further information in order to further refine our budget estimates.”