Oldham signs up to slash £1bn spending

Oldham has joined a “coalition of the willing” to save more than £1bn of public spending across Greater Manchester by 2013.

Council leader Howard Sykes joined fellow leaders to approve a plan to reduce the £2.4bn-a-year cost of goods and services Greater Manchester’s 10 local authorities.

The savings could be made by collaborating with other councils on services including adult social care, children’s services, property management, IT, procurement, and payrolls. The leaders were presented with a report by Trafford’s chief executive Janet Callender at a meeting of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities in Bolton.

But in the report she warns that the full scale of each authority’s financial challenges cannot be met solely through collaboration.

She adds, however, that it may be possible to save up to 20 per cent £116m —even though it would be ambitious target.

The leaders will discuss the savings again next month.