SELBY District Council has renewed its pledge to reduce costs by £1.5 million while still maintaining essential community services.

The authority has set out its priorities for the coming year two weeks after the election, which saw Labour gain one seat, but the make-up of the council remain largely unchanged.

Last year, the council announced a new Service Delivery Vehicle (SDV), would be used following the elections, which would see a core of 14 council staff contract out services to third parties.

It was hoped this approach, which was implemented on April 1, would help the authority save £1.5 million this year, and £3 million by 2014, but no details on which services would be handled by new partners have yet been confirmed.

Council leader Mark Crane said: “The aim of having yearly priorities like this is to ensure we focus on the issues that matter most to you.

“So, for example, we know that economic recovery is an issue that’s really important for a lot of people, so we’ll continue to focus our efforts on working with others to secure a sustainable and long-term recovery for the local economy.

“However, it’s also important that the council itself is in good shape to deal with a near 30 per cent reduction in Government funding over the next four years. That’s why one of our key areas of work for this year is to reduce our expenditure by a series of balanced measures while maintaining essential services to our community.”

Labour leader Coun Steve Shaw-Wright, leader of the council’s Labour group who worked on plans for the SDV, said the details of the plans were not yet finalised, and the council needed to review its plans in public at the end of the year.

He said: “Every year the Tories set priorities which say the same thing, cut costs, work with others, get someone else to do what you should, and then claim the credit. However, the council never gives a report as to what they have done, or committed to the priorities.”