MORE than 30 'innovative' projects could hold the key to reducing spending on council services by a massive £50m over the next three years.

Reductions in the grant the Government gives Harrow Council – estimated at £16m for 2011/12, and £14m each in 2012/13 and 2013/14 – means that departmental budgets could be slashed by up to 30 per cent in a bid to reign in expenditure.

This comes on top of £3.95m worth of extra cuts that will must to be found this financial year alone to help balance the books.

On Thursday (July 8), council leader Bill Stephenson, whose Labour administration won back control of the authority at May's local elections, introduced the Better Deal For Residents programme: a list of 30 projects that are hoped will boost frugality at Harrow Civic Centre and therefore produce the bulk of the necessary savings.

Among the proposals are six "reviews" and four "consultations" that will examine specific the way that certain services operate at present.

Some of the more tangible policies include developing plans for a new, smaller and more compact civic centre that will be cheaper to maintain, and decommissioning and selling unused council property.

Labour wants to introduce the ability for residents to log into a council website account to monitor all the payments received or made to the authority and to make and track complaints among other transactions or issues.

Cashless parking may be introduced, management posts could go and grants to the voluntary sector look likely to be chopped.

Mr Stephenson said: "We haven't been in power for long but we have been working very hard with officers."Some options we have said 'no' to and others we have revised, refined and validated and we're ready to launch our programme for the next three years to cope with those financial cuts.

"We quite deliberately took our time. We have been looking at every option carefully and studying the business case, making sure it's going to make savings and also, in many cases, improve the service.

"We have our backs against the wall so it makes people bit more outside the box and we have got some really innovative ideas."

But opposition leader Councillor Susan Hall (Conservative) said: "The devil is in the detail and there's no detail.

"This administration has dithered and dithered, all while costing residents more and more money, and I'm very concerned about the future, having spent four years as part of a Conservative administration doing everything we could to protect frontline services.

"The areas targeted [for savings] are always the high-revenue targets and I'm concerned Labour will just cut from the public realm department; we spent a lot of time really cleaning this borough up – there's no grotspots left – and that's not by accident: it's what the residents wanted.

"And it's not just a case of cutting as there are some areas in the council they should be investing to save, such as the anti-fraud department."

MONEYSAVING PROJECTS

1. Council employees to work more flexibly
2. Consultation on upgrading information technology
3. Eliminate management tiers
4. Organizational redesign of public realm department
5. Review of council's administration support
6. Review of performance, strategy, research and consultation staff
7. Develop plan for new civic centre
8. Cheaper home care provider contracts through joint bargaining with neighbouring councils
9. Review of special needs transport
10. Consultation on future voluntary sector grants
11. Review of concessionary travel administration
12. Consultation on placements for teenagers in council's care
13. Realignment of children's services
14. Unused council properties to be sold off
15. Staff losses within property and infrastructure service
16. Revive plan for combined central and civic library-cum-community hub
17. Making it easier for people to pay for parking
18. Review way council departments fund voluntary bodies
19. Remaining customer services to be integrated into Access Harrow one stop shop
20. Better coordinate assessments across council
21. New 'housing ambition programme'
22. Review of leaseholder services
23. Develop commitment to local businesses
24. Introduce care service for people leaving hospital
25. Examine opportunities for partner organisations to provide services
26. Analysis of families with most complex needs
27. Consultation on adult care services
28. Expand use personalised budgets
29. Provide 'citizen's accounts' for online transactions
30. Self service machines added to libraries
31. Make it easier for residents to make payments
32. Improve recycling rates
33. Encourage residents to be more environmentally-friendly
34. Encourage volunteering
35. Encourage more neighbourhood responsibility
36. Encourage tenants to take care of void properties
37. Develop role of residents helping to look after the vulnerable