‘Daunting’ times lie ahead as council faces huge cuts

A SPECIAL meeting of Argyll and Bute Council yesterday (Thursday) was expected to approve ‘high level’ measures to slash spending over the next three financial years.

Councillors were facing stark financial facts in the papers before them: an estimated £20 million black hole in the budget between 2018 and 2021, and swingeing cuts and job losses to help save £11 million – just over half the shortfall – with more needed in the near future.

Plans include dozens of redundancies as well as raising charges for environmental and animal health services, cutting the number of council depots, increasing parking charges, shutting down 36 of 57 public toilets, starting a funeral director service, scrapping the road safety unit, removing the renewable energy budget and stopping funding VisitScotland.

Last Thursday, the policy and resources committee agreed to refer the budget decision to yesterday’s full council meeting and, if approved, it will head to a public consultation in November.

Committee members expressed concern at the possible effects, with Councillor Robin Currie saying: ‘It would be very useful if we could get an idea of what redundancies will have an effect on service delivery.’

Councillor Sandy Taylor added: ‘We need to discuss the detail before we can decide what to take forward.’

The council’s executive director of customer services, Douglas Hendry, responded: ‘Officers haven’t had the time or resources to identify this level of detail, which is why we have taken a high level approach.’ He added: ‘I apologise for the fact this is a high level consideration, but that is where we are.’

Council chief executive Cleland Sneddon said: ‘It is absolutely daunting to have to find savings of this scale over this threeyear timescale. Unfortunately, we are going to have to concentrate first and foremost on the key and core services we are required to provide.’