Welcoming these developments, Councillor Roger Lawrence said Wolverhampton had succeeded in being 'open for business' in the past year - but he warned of challenges ahead. "Wolverhampton has been disproportionately impacted by cuts to grants by a Government which has favoured wealthier rural areas over economically disadvantaged urban areas.
"Our response to this challenge has to be radical. Since 2010, we have made £65 million savings, restructured our services and deleted 600 posts. We have frozen non-essential recruitment and overseen a 3-year wage freeze for staff. We have taken this tough action, but it is not enough. It can never be enough in the 'new normal' of local government."
With the prospect of many years of austerity, the council had to renew its relationship with citizens. "Already, we are reconfiguring our budget consultation approach in 2013/2014 to ensure we have a dialogue with our communities on what is important to them, enabling their priorities to shape our budget savings proposals.
"We need to continue to look at how we develop our relationship with our citizens, how we communicate with them and how we work with them to create opportunity for all. By being in tune with our citizens, not only can the council be the vehicle to build opportunity and strengthen resilience in our communities, but we demonstrate our community leadership and relevance to the communities we serve."
Type=articles;Articleid=2658;Title=Read the full Annual Report to Stakeholders and watch the State of the City Address video;
- released: Friday 12 July, 2013