CHARGING more for services is one of the ways Labour intends to balance Harrow's books this year and keep its core functions running.
The administration wants Harrow Council to exploit its commercial position just like a private company does to raise income - which means things like the cost of pest control, registar fees, library and museum costs, and preliminary planning advice could go up.
Council leader Bill Stephenson (Labour) said: "This budget is about moderning the council at the same time as protecting frontline services.
"We have nearly 50 different initiatives which are feeding into the budget although I can't guarantee all are going to come to fruition.
"This is the first time residents' opinions have really been taken into account."
He explained: "We're trying to close the gaps and we're being very transparent.
"We're going to be more commercial and we may have to do things differently.
"We're going to have a root and branch review of our fees and charges rather than just increasing them across the board.
"And we're really serious about procurement - lower cost procurement making sure we don't have 20 or 30 different suppliers and making sure we get a good deal."
Julie Alderson, interim corporate director of resources, added: "We're going to be more commercial in our thinking but where there's a particular impact on the vulnerable, we need to be careful."
The recommendation is for a council tax freeze, underwritten by the coalition government, on a budget that includes investment in services of s7.5million against cutbacks of s10.7m.
Some of the significant changes contained in the draft budget are:
n a reduction in senior staff from 30 to 20
n changing workers' terms and conditions to save money
n at least 10 specified posts being scrapped with planning alone saving s162,000
n s3m investment in meeting demand for adult social services
n an extra s740,000 to deal with rising number of homeless families
n restructuing how children centres are run saves s800,000
n nearly s600,000 to cover shortfall in public realm income
n s219,000 to complete the borough's planning blueprint
n establishing a permanent procurement team to ensure value-for-money in all contracts
n look to introduce new Community Infrastructure Levy on developers to fund local improvements
n introduce automated voice recognition software for calls to certain departments
n exploring combining the Gayton and Civic Centre libraries in one town centre site
n relocate Hatch End library into Harrow Arts Centre to free up building as gym
Chief executive Michael Lockwood summarised: "Children's centres and libraries are not closing here because we're being innovative."
The budget is likely to be approved by the cabinet committee this evening (Thursday) and will go to the full council meeting in XXX.
