Where is Warrington Council planning £50m of cuts?
BBCWarrington Borough Council is planning to make cuts worth £51.2m.
The proposals will be discussed by the council's cabinet later and again by the full council on 21 September.
Why are these cuts planned?
Warrington Borough Council built up more than £1.8bn of debt, mostly due to its investment programme.
This led to the government appointing ministerial envoys to "support, challenge and advise".
As part of this, the council was told to come up with a debt reduction plan.
It is now seeking to make £51.2m of cuts as part of its ongoing transformation programme to make it financially sustainable.
It follows cuts of £40m signed off earlier this year as part of its budget.
Where are the latest cuts?
Adult social care
The largest proposed cuts are in adult social care, with £34m of savings earmarked.
Speaking at a recent meeting of the scrutiny committee, director of adult social care Caroline Williams said the cuts were "the continuation of progress" and that the authority was focused on identifying issues "earlier in someone's journey".
She added this would involve work on how people enter the care system.
Areas where savings are planned include through reviewing care packages for working age adults, which Williams said meant the council would include "less formal care" and "using assets and strengths people have available to them".
For older people, the council is planning to continue reviews of care packages.
Williams said this would include focusing on "supporting people to live well and independently as long as they can".
Hospital discharge for older people was one area the council said it was working on to reduce costs.
Williams said the council was working with the hospital to identify when people are ready to leave and that they had "very early evidence" of being able to help people return home instead of going to a care home.
Adult social care is the area with the largest job cuts planned - between 70 and 100 roles over the next four years.
Williams said the council would initially withdraw vacancies and then "gradually make reductions" in the number of staff to save £3.8m.
Children's services
It is proposed that children's services will be subjected to the smallest level of cuts - about £1.8m.
They relate to the restructuring of services.
The council is seeking to reduce the number of children in its care by two a year.
Director of children's services Sharon Cooper said at the scrutiny meeting that numbers had fallen in recent years.
She said the council's Families First for Children progamme - which aims to help families stay together - had supported this.
Ending the funding of school meals is another area that the council is focussing on.
Cooper said it was not the "statutory responsibility" of the council to deliver school meals. Rather, she said it was that of schools.
Independent councillor Stuart Mann asked if this meant the council had been "doing something we didn't need to, above and beyond?"
Cabinet member for children's services, Councillor Matt Smith, said this had "always been the case for school meals".
"I had this role in 2020/21 and we were having those discussions then," he said.
"We can't be in a situation year after year where we're potentially in a half a million pound overspend."
Corporate services
Corporate services has cuts planned of about £5.8m.
This area includes a wide range of services - mainly back office functions including HR, IT, contact centres, democratic services, communications and council tax collection.
Cuts and job losses are planned in its IT and legal services departments.
Questions have been raised by opposition councillors about the likely impact of jobs cuts in the legal department on the local authority's planning and enforcement work.
Ten roles equates to a quarter of that team.
One of the biggest areas where jobs could be lost would be in the council's revenue, benefits and exchequer services.
It plans to cut 30 jobs in the team which arrangements benefits payments, collects council tax and investigates suspected fraud.
Councillor Denis Matthews, the cabinet member responsible for finance, said alongside savings and cuts, there was a "real opportunity to transform our council into better than it has been".
Place
Place includes areas such as highways, transport, leisure, and waste.
Cuts worth £9.5m are planned in this area.
About 55 job cuts are planned in this division, which interim director of place Steve Hunter said was through a "mix of efficiencies [and] transformation but there will need to be some reduction on provision".
Some service reductions planned in this area include ending out-of-hours call outs for traffic signal faults, removing security from the bus interchange in Warrington town centre and reducing road sweeping and weed removal from the highways network.
Could there be further cuts?
Yes.
The council is to undertake a full review of its community and leisure facilities - that includes cultural spaces, libraries, leisure centres and more.
Warrington currently has six main leisure centres - although the Woolston Hub is currently closed.
It also has 12 community centres and 13 libraries, although some of these are inside the community hubs which include the leisure centres, and owns venues like the Pyramid Arts Centre.
Leader Hans Mundry said continually subsidising all leisure centres was "probably not an option going forward".
"We need to review them, where they are, what condition they are in".
A review is also planned in environment services - which could see the loss of about 22 jobs - including reducing the management of sports facilities and schools' ground maintenance.
These reviews will be subject to a public consultation, so it may be a number of months before any cuts in these areas are known.
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