Derbyshire County Council has reiterated it would only consider reducing numbers of staff on permanent contracts once other options had been exhausted as part of a possible review and restructuring process.
The Reform-UK led authority has revealed a potential efficiency strategy which could involve reviewing and restructuring staffing after confirming its latest budget position for the current financial year at a Cabinet meeting on September 11.
But it has stressed its position is unchanged and staff reductions will not to be considered until other options including improving priority service areas, deleting vacant posts and reducing agency staff have been exhausted, despite other recent media reports in which Council Leader Alan Graves reportedly stated there are plans to reduce staffing levels and he wants to cut jobs.
A Derbyshire County Council spokesperson stated: “The council continues to face significant financial pressures, driven by high costs – particularly in adult social care and health – and increasing demand for services.
“This prompted a review which found that the council employs more people and has higher operating costs when compared to other county councils.
“At a meeting in July, Cabinet members noted findings of the review which highlighted areas where the council could become more efficient and effective – such as reviewing and, where necessary, restructuring staffing to make sure it is fit for purpose.
“A further report setting out the costs, benefits and timeframe of implementing these recommendations will be considered by Cabinet in the next couple of months.
“Priority service areas, such as SEND and addressing potholes would be improved through efficiency, rather than staffing reductions.
“In other services, savings and efficiencies would be made by deleting vacant posts first and reducing agency staff second.
“The council would only consider whether it was necessary to reduce the numbers of staff on permanent contracts once these options had been exhausted.”
Cllr Graves reportedly stated in a Nottinghamshire Live website report on September 8 that the council has too many staff and that he is planning to reduce staffing levels.
And in a further BBC News report, on September 14, Cllr Graves was reported as saying the authority is ’20per cent overstaffed’ and he wants to cut jobs to make the council ‘lean and mean’, and that he was currently speaking to unions about reducing jobs.
In the BBC report, Cllr Graves reportedly said there is a need to cut down the numbers of agency staff used by the council and by comparison with other authorities he also reportedly said the council is overstaffed.
Cllr Graves has previously said, in a formal county council statement that the authority is scrutinising all its services to ensure they give value for money and it is making sure there is no wasteful spending on any projects or schemes, and it is making changes to the strategic objectives in the Council Plan.
Among the council’s financial pressures, it has put the overspend in children’s social care services down to continued inflationary and demand pressures which it says also continue to affect adult social care services.
It has previously explained the council has identified significant challenges across its service delivery driven by high costs and increased service demand particularly with Adult Social Care and it has noted that it employs more people than comparative authorities.
The council has also noted that for several years, the council’s spending has been in excess of budget, with an unsustainable reliance on reserves with £132.431 million used over the past three years between 2022-23 to 2024-25.
But the council has contracted finance consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers to undertake a review of the council’s operating model and identify efficiencies with an estimated £45.9m of possible savings per year.
Work is ongoing, according to the council, to assess the PwC findings against the council’s Change Portfolio and to identify a plan to implement the recommendations while it initiates an efficiency review.
The council says it is addressing concerns that its operating model is more expensive than ‘comparator councils’ with higher costs than income, and a larger than average workforce and it has recognised the need to become more efficient and effective through the centralisation of support functions, digital improvement, a Finance Improvement Programme, and changes to the council’s Charging Policy in Adult Social Care and Health.
Cabinet Member for Council Efficiency, Cllr John Lawson, has said the assessed scale of efficiency that the council could achieve is in the region of £45m of savings per year and some of these savings have already been factored into the council’s budgets at somewhere in the region of £20m.
Cllr Lawson has said that before the change in leadership the council already had a programme of improvement and that is continuing.
He has also stated that some savings have already been factored in looking at procurement and the operating model in the context of previous ‘turbulent’ times with a ‘significant increase in expenditure’ and efforts are going into centralisation of services and technological advances and the rationalisation of the council.
Cllr Lawson said: “Our hard work continues to ensure the savings already identified stay on track, and we are looking across the council to identify where further savings and efficiencies can be made.
“The challenges faced in previous years, especially around social care costs and demand pressures, continue, so we are not out of the woods by any means.
“However, we are committed to ensuring we can continue to set a balanced budget over the medium-term, ensuring good financial management and a sustainable use of reserves, while continuing to deliver quality services to our residents.”
Cllr Stephen Reed, Cabinet Member for Business Services, has also previously said no one wants to look at compulsory redundancies but he also does not want to make promises he cannot keep in terms of mitigations against staff redundancies.
Derbyshire UNISON union Branch Secretary Martin Porter said: “If Cllr Graves thinks Derbyshire County Council is ‘overstaffed’ he really needs to meet some of our members who are struggling to keep vital services going.
“We would suggest for a start that he visits the Special Educational Needs and Disability assessors in his Children’s Department, who are running at 40per cent of the staffing they need to support desperate families.”
Mr Porter agrees that there are too many agency staff at the council and that the Chesterfield child protection social workers are outnumbered two to one by agency staff and managers are contacting staff who are on leave or off sick to ask them to complete vital work.
He added that this is happening because nearly half the team are off sick with stress, and he claims other social work teams report zero appointable applicants for vacant posts because the council pays significantly less than neighbouring authorities so agency staff are being used instead.
Mr Porter said: “The only way to improve efficiency is to improve pay and conditions and to ensure all teams are fully staffed and resourced to do their job.
“Serving the public is a vital but challenging role, and Cllr Graves could make a start by trying to improve morale, rather than create more fear amongst staff who have already endured more than eight years of cuts and austerity.”
The council’s former Conservative administration saved around £29 million during 2024-2025 and a further £18.6 million of savings were identified as part of the budget approved in February for 2025-2026 to close a previously identified budget gap.
With the increased savings from 2024-2025 and savings identified in the 2025-2026 budget under the new Reform UK administration the council is forecasting that £37.5 million will now be saved during 2025-2026.
While the council says the budget position is much-improved its latest report for the first quarter of 2025-26 states it is important to recognise that by the end of the year there is expected to be an estimated overspend forecast on children’s social care of £25.9 million and the forecast underspend across the council’s corporate budgets of £23.2 million with other minor variances will leave an overall forecast overspend of £1.3 million.
