£489 Million Budget Agreed For 2006-7
The Highland Council agreed savings of £18.7 million today Thursday (2 February) in confirming a budget of £489 million for 2006-7 and were advised that an even more demanding programme of savings may be needed in 2007/8.
Meeting in Inverness, the Council ratified the recommendations of the Budget Working Group to meet the implications of reduced grant support from the Scottish Executive.
Vice-Convener Councillor Michael Foxley, who is Chairman of the Budget Working Group, said: "This has been a difficult budget to prepare and a difficult year lies ahead in implementing the savings. You cannot make savings of this scale without some pain.
"Looking ahead to 2007/8, the situation is unlikely to improve as the Executive continues its campaign to drive down public spending. We must look at our costs and the way we deliver services. We will be very closely monitoring our budgets to ensure we deliver the savings."
The Budget Working Group, he said, had sought to ensure that robust and sustainable saving measures were found that had minimal implications on frontline service delivery.
This included £6.841 million of efficiency savings, which exceeded the target set by the Scottish Executive of £2.681 million.
The budget allowed for energy price increases estimated at 30% or £1.9 million in 2006/7 and £3.6 million across 2005/6 and 2006/7 as well as an employer’s pension contribution increase of £1.5 million.
A contingency sum of £1.573 million has been included in the budget for the impact of job evaluation.
Included within the budget is additional spending of £4.1 million on road maintenance; £1.55 million for payments to care home owners; £769,000 for class contact reduction/additional teachers; £517,000 for faster access to home care; and £387,000 for social work staff upskilling.
NOTE: The Council was asked to consider introducing a charge of £10 for a bulky uplift from domestic homes. TEC Services Committee Chairman Councillor Charlie King estimated the Council could achieve income of £375,000 from introducing this charge.
Councillor David Munro, Committee Vice-Chairman, moved an amendment that the charge should not be implemented as he felt it would be difficult to introduce a charging system and this would result in fly-tipping. He asked that officials be instructed to present a full report investigating full cost recovery of charging commercial operators for using civic amenity sites or recycling centres.
Councillor Munro’s amendment was successful by 39 votes to 22.