RESIDENTS are going to have to grit their teeth and bear nearly £50million of cuts to public services during the next three years.
Ideas on how to save cash, to the equivalent of 30 per cent of Harrow Council's controllable budget, have evolved into more than 30 projects launched under the banner of 'Better Deal For Residents: Shaping Harrow For The Future'.
However, most of these are aspirational and vague at best because the detailed financial work has yet to be done.
What is clear, though, is that councils can only become more efficient to a certain point before the savings begin to impact on the quality of the services locals receive.
Among the proposals are sensible, behind-the-scenes suggestions that voters may be surprised to find have not been implemented before, such as using computers to make work quicker, easier and more mobile, and cutting unnecessary management.
Other projects sound ominous, like the 'review' of special needs transport in which the council's vision of 'empowering people' could be seen by the more cynical as the authority simply relying on unpaid volunteers to do their job for them.
Harrovians can therefore expect a pared-down council that asks them to give up their time much more frequently.
