Stirling Council faces £4m savings dilemma
Stirling Council may have to make savings of as much as £4 million next financial year.
It follows the announcement last week of the Scottish Government’s draft budget for 2018-19.
Cabinet Secretary for Finance Derek Mackay set aside a proposed total funding package, next financial year, of £11.1 billion for local government.
Ministers say Stirling’s cash allocation from the Scottish Government will rise 3.68 per cent to £186.3 million.
However, analysis by the Scottish councils’ umbrella organisation COSLA showed that overall core funding across Scotland will fall by £237 million if the draft budget is agreed.
Leader of Stirling Council Conservatives Group Neil Benny said if the CoSLA calculation is correct it would mean a cut of £4 million in real terms to Stirling Council services.
Councillor Benny called on Councillor Farmer to fight the Scottish Government’s ‘cuts agenda’, adding: “Finding savings will involve taking difficult decisions and cutting services.
“The current SNP/Labour administration has published no proposals for the public to consider.
“They have already announced that the meeting to set a budget for the next financial year will be held on February 21. After the Christmas holiday there will be barely six weeks before that meeting.
“Previous administrations published plans for consultation well in advance of Christmas.
“This allowed communities and service users to see what the council had planned for the budget in the following year.”
He believed services such as museums, music tuition and care for older people could be at risk because of the funding proposal.
Councillor Farmer acknowledged they had received “extra money for specific purposes” but added: “I am under no illusion that the draft budget from Scottish Government is extremely challenging and as an administration we will do our utmost to minimise the impact while continuing to deliver first class services to our communities throughout Stirling.
“The ballpark figure for savings is at the moment £4 million but we are hoping to drive that down. We have not bottomed out the (deficit) as yet and are working through the figures which we received on Monday night.”
He said the party which Councillor Benny represented was to blame for “relentless, unnecessary and continuing austerity impacting on the most vulnerable in our communities.”
He added: “I will take no lectures from a Tory cheerleader who expounds the virtues of Universal Credit and the two children benefit cap also known as the rape clause.”
Councillor Farmer said the UK Government grant to the Scottish Government had dropped £2billion over the last decade although the Conservatives say funding is up almost a billion this year.
Over the last few years, the council’s budget-setting process has been preceded by public meetings at which residents had the chance to express their views on a range of efficiency savings and ideas for increasing revenue, put forward by officials.
Explaining the procedure, the current administration has adopted, Councillor Farmer said: “We have embarked on a more participative approach to budgeting where we have been actively engaging with our communities as to what they value in council services.
“We have had over 1000 responses to our public consultation exercise that will assist us in informing our budget decisions based on our citizens’ priorities.
“We have moved away from what had previously been a top down approach that did little to reflect the views of our communities and we are determined to change that.”