Over a quarter of local government respondents to a survey on fiscal pressure and inflation challenges in the public sector say they are cutting their scope of services as they change their approach to supporting people, communities and service users.
Many more (64%) said they were reassessing the breadth and depth of services (64%) being offered, according to the survey conducted by audit, accountancy, advisory, tax and legal services company Mazars.
However, 71% of local government respondents said they were seeking new funding and income streams in order to maintain services, while 41% said they were investing in new services.
Only 6% of respondents said they hadn’t made any changes in their approach to supporting people, communities and service users in light of fiscal pressure and inflation.
The research is intended to assess the public and social sector’s response to fiscal pressure and inflation, Mazars said, and questions whether local authorities – among other organisations – are able to deliver support where it is most needed. It also considers how essential services are being transformed to “meet the complex needs of increasingly underserved communities”, and the challenges in achieving this.
A lack of funding and insufficient staffing resources are seen as the greatest barriers to local government’s ability to support vulnerable people and communities, the survey showed. Some 88% of respondents cited lack of funding in the Mazars survey, while 71% cited insufficient staffing resources.
Elsewhere, 58% said a focus on the short-term rather than the long-term was a major barrier, with 46% citing external forces such as policy, legislation, or changes to the government’s agenda, and 38% citing conflicting priorities.
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The survey also asked respondents what they saw as being key priorities for their organisation in the next 12-24 months. Of the local government respondents, 67% said supporting local communities to cope with the cost-of-living crisis would be, with 45% citing the need to improve citizen/service users experience.
Among the other factors seen as priorities were: securing funding (31%), efficiency gains and cost-cutting (31%), levelling up agenda (22%), digitising public/social services (22%), reducing economic inequality (20%), employee wellbeing and development (20%), and technology, innovation and digital transformation (20%).
Just 7% and 4% respectively cited ESG/sustainability programmes and embedding diversity and inclusion as priorities.
“For local government, our survey confirms there is a clear desire for greater, and more impactful collaboration to deliver place-based improvements,” the Mazars survey report, titled ‘Fiscal pressure and inflation challenges for the public & social sector’, concluded. “There are also great ambitions for digital transformation and embracing artificial intelligence to improve the service impact and experience, as well as to deliver organisational efficiencies.
“However, these ambitions are inhibited by the current resource constraints, both financial and physical, which mean that the delivery of strategic (ambitious) plans is being impeded by the need to deal with significant and real ‘here and now’ issues. Those here and now issues include physical resource constraints (people, funds and technology) with no immediate prospect of resolution, and their effects are being compounded across the public and social sector.
“Our survey respondents tell similar stories to those we hear from our clients, where some organisations are increasing the threshold for access to services or reducing them entirely, which is pushing the problem to other parts of the public and social sector, for example hospitals struggling to cope with demand in aging estates, with fewer staff and increasing waiting times.”
A total of 332 individuals from 312 organisations participated in the survey, with local government respondents accounting for 34% of the total. The survey report can be accessed here.
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