WITH budgets shrinking for the provision of services within the county, town councillors will hear tonight (Wednesday 7th October) on the future shape and provision of county council services.

A report commissioned by MCC at a cost of £30k has identified a need to rationalise current working practices, with tourism, leisure and culture and the Youth Service areas identified especially at risk from limited funding.

At a recent MCC Economy and Development Committee meeting, consultants Amion Consulting gave a presentation to county councillors after reviewing the future delivery of services and identified options and opportunities to ensure services become “more self-reliant and resilient”.

A covering report for the Economy and Development committee meeting held on September 30th said that any changes would probably be on a bigger scale than first thought as council officers feel that a “minor tweaking of services will not solve the significant budget deficit issue”.

The report continued to conclude that: “A requirement has been identified to undertake one detailed and comprehensive appraisal of the options relating to providing a sustainable, viable and vital future for leisure, events, culture and youth”.

This may well impact on leisure centres with a hike in charges, museums may well merge and it is expected that MCC will confirm that the One Stop Shop has merged with the library in Monmouth following the example of Usk where One Stop Shop staff were retrained to offer a wider range of services, such as issuing books.

It is expected that an ‘investment’ of £50,000 from the Invest to Re-design Fund will help finance the supplementary work now identified and “to create some of the capacity required internally to mobilise this significant piece of work”.

The brief for the piece of work is currently in development and will be signed off by the Cabinet Member prior to release and will be finalised in readiness for commencement of the first wave of activity in 2016/17 in order to meet the estimated £400k budget target saving.