Monmouthshire County Council's Cabinet approved recommendations to submit proposals for budget savings to select committees for scrutiny over the coming months, as it announced its budget setting meeting will take place a month earlier next year.

The council, following its budget consultation meetings with the people of Monmouthshire, has put together a selection of mandates to be scrutinised, to aid the council in finding the savings it needs in the 2015/16 budget.

Monmouthshire remains firmly at the bottom of the funding league table, with funding of £1,018 per capita compared to the Welsh average of £1,323, and members of the council have spoken out about the struggles they will face again this year to find alternatives to cutting services.

But leader of the council, Councillor Peter Fox, has said that times are getting tough and difficult decisions will have to be made by the council to reach the restrictions put on the council, which mean a reduction of 4.3 per cent on last year's funding.

The council is also experiencing various other budget pressures, including teachers' pensions creating a full year impact of £566k and children's social services impacting by £500k due to increasing numbers of looked after children

There are also the struggles with the £150k which is needed for re-provision of Monmouth Leisure Centre's pool in conjunction with the 21st Century school project, and the democratic pressures on social care of £250k in 2015/16.

The above pressures create a revised gap of £13.5 million over the period of the plan, as the Mid Term Financial Plan contained savings targets of £7.2 million in order to meet the gap identified on the assumptions used last year, the total the savings now required from 2015/16 onwards are £20.7 million.

This is on top of the £7 million savings being delivered in 2014/15, and effectively means a 20 per cent reduction on the council's controllable budget over a five year period.

Councillor Peter Fox said, "Everyone thinks when there is less money things are worse. Actually it allows you to think of things in a different way. Money isn't always the answer.

"It makes us look hard at where our efficiencies are and whether there are other ways to do things. This can be quite exciting as it gives us the opportunity to redesign things in a way which hopefully will give a better longer term result. It's not necessarily doom and gloom, it's about a challenge and I think it's one we will deliver on."

The budget mandate proposals include a new housing options team for the Collaboration of Housing & Community Services facilitating a saving of £6,522, and a housing renewal team which will generate salary savings of £9,944

The council also has a mandate which hopes that Cultural Services will make a saving of £190K in 2015/16, either in savings or income generation through wedding income, savings from the Shire Hall, and income from the rental of the Abergavenny Red Square window.

It has also put together a proposal to be discussed which would revise the current Home to School transport policy by September 1 2016, by increasing statutory distances from two miles to three miles for secondary schools and from 1.5 miles to two miles for primary schools as set out in the revised Learner Travel Wales Measure June 2014.

It also intends to introduce dedicated pick up/drop off points on contracted bus routes and instead remove the provision of travel grants to post 16 students by July 2015 and increase the charge of concessionary & post 16 concessionary seats.

All of these are to be put up for scrutiny to see whether they are viable, see the risk impacts to them and to decide if they will make the savings intended.

The council has also moved forward its date for its annual budget setting meeting by a month, to allow any last minute suggestions brought forward to have appropriate length of time to be checked for their viability and to be impact and risk assessed.

Councillor Phil Hobson said,"I am delighted to see the deadline on the of the alternatives to the budget by January, because at last we are embedding the equalities act into the budget formulation. We have previously had a problem when last minute amendments came in and they have not been strenuously tested against that framework.

"Today's recommendations will avoid that happening and ensure that anyone's viewpoints are adequately tested before they can be adopted or considered and we will know that whatever budget we have is robust and not open to legal challenge."

All of the mandates are available to view on the MCC website via their Wednesday November 5 cabinet meeting agenda at monmouthshire.gov.uk.