City of Edinburgh Council backs £26m give away budget

By Alastair Tibbitt
Councillors met in the city chambers today.

The City of Edinburgh Council has agreed a budget for the forthcoming year that will see £26m invested across the range of services the council provides.

The budget proposals by the council’s Liberal Democrat/SNP led coalition were adopted without amendment, as the coalition held together against separate amendments proposed by the Labour, Conservative and Green groups.

Speaking during the budget debate, council Leader Jenny Dawe described her administrations proposals as ‘prudent, realistic and sustainable.’

She said: “I am very proud to support this budget. Thanks to this administration’s husbandry of the council budget since May 2007, and thanks to Scottish Government recognition that our per capita funding was less than 85% of the national average, we found ourselves able to make substantial new investment this year.”

“We’ve managed to deliver additional funding for the essential services that we prioritise and which match the things local residents have told us that they see as their priorities.”

She went on to describe the budget proposals by other parties as “unimaginative, mundane efforts.”

After spending £4m on the Alternative Business Models project that would have seen large swathes of council services outsourced to the private sector, had the plans not been abandoned by councillors in January, the council has now committed to spending a further £9m on developing the same services internally.

Other spending commitments include £4.1m for repairs to schools, £3m for road repairs, £9m over the next three years for active travel infrastructure, £2.1m for care services for older people, and £1m towards supporting the council’s ‘Edinburgh Guarantee’ scheme which helps school leavers find work in the city.

In addition, the budget will see £890,000 in revenue spending provided to Edinburgh Leisure, each year for the next three years, to help prevent further service reductions.

As well as this boost to Edinburgh Leisure budgets for running costs, £725,000 will also be provided for improvements to sports pitches, pavilions and allotments throughout the city.

In the detail of the proposals, there are also plans to fund a council owned hydro-electricity generating plant on the Water of Leith at Saughton, and an £85,000 budget for replacing trees lost during the recent storms.

To fund these spending proposals, councillors agreed to take £6m out of the council’s reserves to fund what critics have branded a ‘huge pre-election give away.”

Council tax will remain frozen at current levels for another financial year.

Click here to see the Administration budget motion in full

Labour leader, Andrew Burns, described the budget as “the biggest budget raid on council reserves in the council’s history,” and said that despite administration claims of financial prudence the council now has the fourth worst ratio of debt to turnover of all the local authorities in Scotland.

He pointed out that the budget will take the total debt carried by the council to £1.5billion, or £3000 for every resident of the city.

Labour’s alternative budget proposals, included plans to increase the size of the budgets allocated through the local Neighbourhood Partnership structures and proposals to establish a ‘co-operative development unit,’ to explore the scope for delivering some council services through locally owned organisations.

The Edinburgh Labour group also proposed to pay all council staff a “living wage,” and encourage council suppliers to do the same.

The Conservatives criticised the administration budget as well, suggesting that the £24m spending spree was irresponsible in the face of the cuts that the council will still need to make in future years.

The Conservative budget proposals would have seen reduced spending in the next financial year, with more cash left in the council reserves.

Reiterating their support for private sector involvement in council service delivery, Cllr Mowat said council service providers should be “selected without dogma” and that they remain committed to providing “the best quality services at the best price.”

The Green group did not table an alternative budget motion, arguing that it would be a waste of public resources under the current council budget process.

During the debate, Green councillor Maggie Chapman, called for the budget process to be changed to allow for greater cross party scrutiny to take place and asked the administration councillors: “Does anyone in the administration know how many jobs will be lost as a result of this budget?”

None of the proposals from any of the opposition parties were adopted by the administration during the debate.

In addition to the spending plans agreed by the council, charges for hundreds of council services will also be increased from April the 1st.

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