£13m taken out of council coffers
South Lanarkshire councillors voted to introduce more than £13 million in cuts, including charges for bulky uplifts, removing funding for the SLC summer programme and cuts to secondary school librarians and technicians.
Cuts include the removal of the one free bulky uplift per year for residents; locals will now have to pay £40 for all requests and the number of items per uplift will be reduced to a maximum of 10 at a time.
Plans have also been set in place to remove three school crossing points in Hamilton which are co-located with zebra crossings. The locations are at High Blantyre/Udston Road and Udston Road/ Farm Road, serving pupils from St John Ogilvie High and Greenlee and St Cuthbert’s primaries; and at Auchinraith Road, close to Holy Cross High and Beckford Primary.
The cost of secondary school meals will also be increased by 20p, to generate £177,000.
The school librarian service will be cut by around 50 per cent, meaning a reduced service for schools of one to two days per week.
Cuts will also be made to the number of secondary school technicians who support with science, technical and audio-visual work. The proposal is to reduce the service by 25 per cent, which would mean a reduction in staffing across each secondary school based on size.
South Lanarkshire will also roll back on the over-provision of free period products. There is a legislative requirement to ensure that sanitary products are available free of charge in schools and the community but the spend over the last two years has been less than the funded award by the Scottish Government.
The council will remove its remaining funding towards the SLC summer programme for children, following a reduction in the Scottish Government funding. It means that the holiday food and play club, which operated at 11 locations across South Lanarkshire last year, will “only continue if the Scottish Government funds it.”
There will also be a cut to early learning and childcare food provision for children attending morning-only and afternoon-only settings where food provision is in addition to milk and a healthy snack. There will be a reduction in food choice to reduce the service marginally to align to hours in attendance.
Cuts will also include a reduction of countryside and greenspace activities in relation to core path networks, countryside access, ranger activities, projects and community groups and third sector, volunteering/community clean-ups.
The budget will see investments of £2.6m, which include a £480,000 boost into maintaining roads across the area.
Further to this, £150,000 will be used to develop a ‘spend to save’and sustainable income generation options for the council over more than one financial year, reflecting the council’s ambition to transition to net zero.
And £500,000 will be invested in a central energy efficiency fund over more than one financial year.
The budget also includes the £1m Community Fightback Fund and £150,000 Future Libraries Fund.
Council leader Joe Fagan said difficult decisions had to be made to set a balanced budget for 2024/2025 as the council faced a whopping £20.57m funding hole.
He said:“South Lanarkshire Council has had to make around £13 million of cuts but we have at least been able to protect some of our frontline services and deliver a funding deal that will help protect some of our local facilities.
“Whitehill Neighbourhood Centre will be saved and Hollandbush Golf Course will remain open for a further year while we develop plans for a new future for the golf course under community control. Our £1 million Community Fightback Fund will see the council work with local communities to keep facilities open under new community operators, where SLLC has to withdraw from them.
“Our decisions to borrow to invest mean that we can also maintain roads spending at existing levels.”
“I won’t pretend this budget was easy. It was the toughest the council has ever faced. That’s why it’s so important that we keep fighting for a fair share of public spending.”