Council budget needs to make £6m of savings

East Ayrshire Council will put forward its budget plans under a cloud of“volatility and uncertainty”- with £6 million of savings needed to balance the books.

Budget setting prior to local elections tends to avoid major controversies, although the spectre of Covid and the impact of Brexit has made hard decisions the norm.

The local authority will set a budget of around £370m which is £16m higher than 2021/22, but largely because of additional one-off Covid related funding.

Council tax will increase for only the second time since 2007. However, worries of a potential rise of more than five per cent has been allayed, with a three per cent rise proposed following the Scottish Government’s promise of £120m to be shared across Scotland’s councils.

Council rents would rise by 1.5 per cent.

Service fees and charges would stay at current levels, other than those set nationally or by partner agencies. There would be increases in charges for council lock-ups and garages.

Eight major budget points...Three per cent increase in council tax (Band D increase to £1,416.61)House, garage and lock-up rent levels to increase by 1.5 per cent.Fees and charges set by council to be held at 2020/21 levels£6m to be found in savings and efficiencies (£2.07m relating to‘workforce planning’and £2.67m to be saved in health and social care)Indicative budget gap of £18m in 2023/24 and £57m over five years to 2026/27£440,000 to support the health and wellbeing of young people across East Ayrshire£800,000 for net zero plan£57,000 for a permanent violence against women lead officer.

However, there are also clear warnings about the never-ending tightening of belts, with next year’s budget gap touted as £18m, rising to £57m over the next five years.

In a report to the cabinet, which meets on Wednesday, ahead of the full budget on Thursday, chief financial officer Joe McLachlan states: “Building the 2022/23 budget has been an extremely challenging task for a number of reasons.

“It is a budget where volatility and uncertainty looms large over the council’s financial plan for next year and beyond.”

He points to inflation, increased cost of living and the planned rise in energy price caps, meaning ‘individuals and families will have to take drastic action to offset these costs with the council and partners seeking ways to provide the necessary support and advice’.

Scottish Government Covid funding will mean that council budgets will break even or be under budget in 2021/22.

Ongoing funding will mean that the council will not have to make use of its reserves, which Mr McLachlan describes as being‘at their lowest for several years’and will need to be built up.

The report points to the fact that there was a 71 per cent rise in the number of people claiming Universal Credit between 2019/20 and 2020/21. Almost 22 per cent of children, around 6,000, live in a low-income family.

The council’s share of the additional £120m in one-off funding is £2.805m. In the budget proposal, £1m is to be used should there be increases in contract prices and £671,000 utilised to support an education redesign, with another £50,000 for changes to lunch offers at secondary schools.

A total of £800,000 will be used to develop a net zero carbon action plan with the remaining £440,000 spent to support the health and wellbeing of young people through free and discounted access to a range of facilities, events, workshops, activities and clubs.

One of the major criticisms of the funding settlement from the Scottish Government has been the conditions meaning that some funding requires services to be protected from cuts, reducing the options that councils have to make savings.

Mr McLachlan’s report points out these difficulties and adds:“It is these unprotected services that deliver some of the key elements of the early intervention and prevention work which generates tangible efficiencies for the council and our partners.”

Just over a third of the £6m in cuts comes under the ‘workforce planning’heading. The council says that the majority of these savings are ‘where services have deleted vacant posts or are redesigning services in line with the workforce plan’.

Almost half of the £6m will remain to be considered by the East Ayrshire health and social care partnership board before the financial year ends.

If approved at Wednesday’s cabinet, the budget proposals will be considered by the full council on Thursday.