Have councils run out of efficiency savings?

摘要

Media reports are awash with 'graphs of doom', whose lines plot inexorably rising demand and demographics against future years of restrained town hall funding. But, having served as the vanguards of public sector efficiency, suffering 28% front-loaded cuts from the Spending Review, can further efficiencies be squeezed from an already hard-pressed local government sector? Or is there a positive alternative to the forecast decade of austeri-ty?