Job fears as capital chiefs blow budget
● Warning of more job cuts, reduced services and higher charges
Edinburgh Council chiefs are to make severe cuts after the city overspent its budget just three months into the financial year.
New figures are set to be presented to councillors today that reveal the authority is £11 million over budget in the first quarter of the year.
City officials have been warned that cutbacks will be to required over the next five years to correct the problem.
And there are also warnings that £140m in savings will be needed over the next five years.
Finance convener Alasdair Rankin warned more redundancies could be expected.
Edinburgh council chiefs have hit serious money troubles just three months into the financial year.
Figures being presented to councillors today reveal the authority has overspent its budget by £11 million in the first quarter.
There are also warnings that even more savings than expected will be required over the next five years.
Officials have been ordered to find urgent savings to make up the gap.
Finance convener Alasdair Rankin admitted that in the longer term the council may have to seek more redundancies, reduce services and increase charges.
The Greens said the reality of repeated spending cuts was “coming home too roost” while the Conservatives claimed the figures suggested problems with financial management inside the council.
A report to today’s finance and resources committee shows a total overspend in the first three months of 2017-18 of £11.1m on roads, waste collection, temporary accommodation for the homeless and health and social care.
This was reduced to £5m by savings elsewhere of £6.1m. But it is unusual to have such a high overspend at this stage in the financial year.
The council’s budget for the current year already incorporates £39.5m of savings. But another report to the committee reveals estimates of grant funding, pay awards, inflation, demographic changes and other factors have led to a calculation of an increasing demand for savings in the near future. “Across the fiveyear period of the council’s business plan, this suggests an overall savings requirement of some £140m by 2022-23.”
Green finance spokesman Gavin Corbett said: “The reality of year-on-year cuts in funding are coming home to roost and coming home earlier.
“That is something for the Scottish Government to take seriously as it prepares its 2018-19 budget.”
Finance convener Alasdair Rankin, an SNP councillor, said most of the overspend was demand-led – more being made homeless because of UK government welfare reforms and the benefit cap; more elderly needing care; and more roads needing repaired.
He said the waste collection service was improving. “We have invested quite a bit in technology to get refuse lorries out again when there is a reported incident.”
On the projected £140m savings required over the next five years, he said the council was in “very difficult financial territory”.