A set of digital initiatives could help Bristol City Council cut £75m from its budget between 2017 and 2020, despite challenges meeting its existing savings target.

According to council documents, the  council has yet to formally identify how it will meet the remaining £12.9m efficiency savings in the final year of its existing £64m three year savings plan to 2017

It said that officers are currently working on a number of work streams to identify where the remaining savings in the current plan will be delivered in 2016-17.

The document said: “The change programme is progressing well with two thirds of benefits identified or delivered.

“However, driving out efficiency savings is becoming more and more challenging, we now need to accelerate the pace of delivery of the final tranche of savings.”

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Each directorate within the council is currently developing a change and savings plans, and cross-cutting initiatives are also being pursued.

The council said that its current calculations suggest that an additional £75.3m will need to be saved by the end of 2019/20.

And it warned that the drive for efficiency from existing initiatives would start to yield decreasing yields on investment.

As a result, the next phase will include developing multi-agency partnerships and shared services with other local bodies and growing income generating opportunities.

It could also use combined data assets with partner agencies and council services “to predict problems before they arise or notice them early, so that services can be targeted on early intervention and prevention”.

Additionally, the further development of the council’s digital platform could “encourage the active contribution of citizens so that they can work better together to help each other as well as harnessing the creative contribution of developers to produce apps for public good that we can host on our platform”.