The Department of Infrastructure faces significant financial challenges in 2014/15 with a savings target of £5m as a result of the Budget approved by Tynwald this week. Minister David Cretney, MHK, described the target as:
'…extremely challenging but essential to ensure Government achieves its aim of a balanced budget by 2016…'
Said Mr Cretney:
'With this year’s budget, I have accepted responsibility for almost half of all the savings in Government for the coming budget year. Some of these savings will be found by the new shared services for fleet and estate management, which will allow more efficient procurement and service delivery. This is a huge challenge, but one that I am determined to meet while continuing to provide good levels of service to the public and delivering a high quality infrastructure that allows the Island to attract economic development and to secure future growth.'
Shared Services will have a significant impact on the Department and 2014/15 will see the remit of the Estates Division grow to include responsibility for all of Government’s cleaning and caretaking services. A new shared service will also be formed which will take responsibility for the management of Government’s entire fleet. In consolidating these functions into the Department an estimated £1M of savings will need to be made across the two functions by March 2015.
Describing other ways in which the Department would deliver the savings, Minister Cretney said:
'Since my time as Minister for Infrastructure, I have been actively encouraging the Department to review its structure and to reduce the number of Divisions and reduce the number of senior manager posts it has. Since I became Minister, I have overseen a saving of £3M on staff costs which equals a reduction in approximately 109 full time posts.
'This year will see three current Divisions being merged to create 2 new teams, one of which will deliver road services, the other estates service. This is similar to the approach taken to form the Ports Division last year. This will enable staff to focus on customer service, to work better together, and to communicate more effectively. Importantly it will also allow us to reduce costs by releasing efficiency savings from these areas.'
The Minister added that the Department continued to absorb the costs of the all Island response to extreme weather events such as the snow event last March, which cost in the region of £250k and the ongoing flooding issues which have so far cost a further £250k to manage.
The Department will also gain responsibility for Passenger Transport following the dissolution of DCCL on 1 April, 2014, which includes buses, stream railway and the Manx Electric Railway.
The Minister thanked staff for their important contribution in delivering changes within the Department. He also went on to thank those staff involved in emergency responses to local communities during the extreme weather events of the last 12 months.
The Minister expressed his appreciation to the public and businesses for their patience when major infrastructure works cause inevitable short term disruption.
Budget 2014 Departmental updates – INFRASTRUCTURE
Summary
- In addition to the £1.5m of revenue savings announced last year a further £1m saving from general efficiencies
- Realising efficiencies from the creation of new shared services (Fleet and Caretaking and Cleaning) and expanding Estates Shared Service will be £1.5m
- Reorganisation of the Department structure will generate savings of £0.5m in 2014/15 and a further £0.5m in 2015/16
- Smarter working combined with changes to terms and conditions and increasing use of new technology mean fewer people required to deliver the same service.
- Staffing reductions achieved so far equate to 109 ftes through natural wastage
- Spending on staff now £3.0M less than in 2010/11.
Continuing to maximise life of plant and vehicles thus reducing use of scarce capital resources.
