The subject of austerity is one that dominates the press, and will dominate the next few months as we trundle inexorably toward the general election. It is a contentious issue, but there are examples of clever thinking that has resulted in really good outcomes.
One such example is the issue of the new Wyre Forest District Council offices. WFDC spend our money on services such as rubbish collection, planning and other essential services to make the community work properly. They need an office and whilst that office has a capital value, rather like the value of a reader's house (where the value is offset against any mortgage), it also has a running cost - light, heating etc.
The council used to have a number of offices, some owned, and others leased and all old and decrepit. They had a value and had some quite substantial running costs. The council agreed that there was a possibility that they could reduce the running costs whilst at the same time not spending any more money on the capital value. So the council set out to save £500,000 a year on running costs and not spend a penny more of capital value than could be raised from the sale of existing, obsolete buildings.
To do this, they built Wyre Forest House, a modern building on the Stourport Road.
The good news is that they have exceeded all expectations with regard savings of running costs. WFDC have exceeded the £500,000 - of your money - they wanted to save and are now £645,000 a year better off. This is money to be spent on front line services.
The new build cost £10 million and £9,442,000 has been raised from receipts from the sales of the old offices, with the remainder coming from revenue. But given the better than expected cost savings, this will be paid for quickly.
But there are other benefits. The construction of the new building created jobs. The vacated offices not only created construction jobs as they were refurbished, but the refurbished offices now provide new accommodation for new businesses and employers, bring more prosperity to the district. The knock on effect of this build has been welcome.
Inevitably there has been a few issues with the new build - these are to be expected. But this project shows how waste can be eliminated and better taxpayer value for more be delivered through intelligent thought.