Council meets to set budget against pandemic backdrop

Higher public transport fares and reduced posts

Higher public transport fares and fees for electric vehicle charging points were among the measures under consideration as Argyll and Bute Council met on Thursday to set its 2021/22 budget.

The two potential measures were added to the raft of savings options for the authority to consider after the council’s budget working group removed savings options which involved pupil support assistant posts being lost.

It was estimated that a public transport fare scale increase would bring in an extra £76,000 to the council in the 2021/22 financial year, while electric vehicle charging fees would add £16,000.

The full council was due to meet via Skype on February 25 to determine its budget for the coming financial year and to set council tax rates.

An updated budgeting pack was presented to the authority’s policy and resources committee on Thursday February 18. In the pack, executive director Kirsty Flanagan, pictured, said: ‘New savings options were identified by officers and presented to the budget working group at meetings held on September 30, November 2 and November 24, 2020. The budget working group agreed a suite of options which were presented to the policy and resources committee on December 10 which would deliver £3.440m in savings in 2021-22, £3.732m in 2022-23 and £4.008m in savings in future years.

‘The budget working group met again on December 18, 2020 and February 3, 2021 which has resulted in the savings options being further refined.’

The revised budget savings options identified a total of 20 posts – equivalent to 17.7 full-time jobs – as being at risk of being cut. Eleven of those posts could be lost through rationalisation of the council’s property estate over three years, while four more may go through reducing the specifications for cutting grass.

Ms Flanagan also said that if all of the officers’ suggested savings options were taken, the council stood to have a surplus of just over £3 million – but that was before considering the impact of Covid-19.

She added: ‘This is a welcome position and has arisen due to a better than anticipated financial settlement, including additional funding for local government core budgets.

‘Whilst there are a number of savings options built into these figures that could be reversed, many of them are management/operational in nature that officers will be implementing through the normal course of business and will assist with the continued challenging position in future years.’

 More on the agreed council budget in next week’s edition.