Savings of £12m will still need to be made

A proposed increase of 1p on school milk was also scrapped.

The winners in this year’s budget are young people and the elderly.

The council has said it will spend over £444million next year on local services and aims to prioritise investment in services for increasing numbers of older people, education, the environment as well as families living in poverty.

But council bosses said some hard decisions still had to be made to balance the books and along with the rise of nearly five per cent in council tax, there will be increases in costs to some services.

Some £12m of savings have to be made. They said further efficiencies include a reduction in the number of council vehicles and buildings which will result in changes to service delivery.

There will also be changes in internal, back- office services which will also impact upon some groups of customers.

The approved budget plans included further investment in mainstream school transport, volunt a r y organisations and enhance independent living support for young people and significant additional investment of £ 1million to support the council’s job task force to help create jobs, invest in business start- ups and boost and economic growth. A feasibility study will look at the potential replacement for recycling centres at Linlithgow and Broxburn and there will be an investment of an additional £220,000 to increase street cleansing vehicles and improve service delivery.

There will also be extra funding to improve ground maintenance in cemeteries.

Over £800,000 was earmarked for investment in climate change projects.

In 2021/ 22 and 2022/ 23 the council will invest some of the one-off funding in a Community Transport Fund which will contribute to a wider review of passenger transport in West Lothian.

Councillors also agreed to protect building cleaning.

Council Leader Lawrence Fitzpatrick said: “Our budget protects the young, our senior citizens and those in greatest need, and reflects a strong empathy with local people, council staff and the environment.

“We aim to protect and improve West Lothian’s communities and local services. We believe that we have agreed the best possible budget within the resources available to us, and each individual within West Lothian will benefit from the council’s investment.”