SAVINGS, change and more challenges face council staff in the years to come – even once the new Dorset Council has started work in April.

Treasurer Jason Vaughan says there will be no place for complacency and the new council will have to carry on with transformation, year after year, or ostrich-like, put its collective head in the sand and hope the world goes away.

“There is not likely to be big increases in government funding so we have to be in charge of our own destiny,” he told shadow councillors at a meeting in Dorchester on Monday evening.

He said future challenges included the 2020-21 government comprehensive spending review and its ‘fair funding’ strategy as well as changes to the way

business rates are calculated and spent.

Challenges for the council are expected to include a growth in the number of children with additional needs.

Finance brief holder Cllr Tony Ferrari said the growing number of children who were having their additional needs met was costly, but was good because it meant they were getting the support they needed and were being given a better chance in life.

He said he believed the council would need to look again at what buildings it had and whether the right people were in the right buildings – which might, in turn, lead to the sale of some assets.