Councillors are voting this week on proposed cuts which includes almost £5million to be slashed from health and social care grants.
The Labour run council there blames SNP entirely (as the Daily Record reporter writes in the above link) but fails to mention pressures from wage increases, inflation, and increased demand on services. It also fails to mention the interest on PFI repayments which has reached £20 million in some years for Edinburgh council.
The chief problem however is that Edinburgh remains the lowest funded local authority in Scotland, yet it’s supposed to run services (cleansing, culture, maintainance…) to support over twice its resident population because students at the 4 universities don’t contribute council tax (their accommodation doesn’t pay business rates) nor do the thousands of annual visitors (yet)
Nobody is shocked by stories like this.
We’ve known that councils have been starved of funding for 15 years. Coupled with other public services being starved of funding, wthis has put further demand on councils as more of the public using council services such as social care etc.
The general public have no idea how much councils are statutory obliged to deliver, how much resources have dwindled (both in terms of staffing numbers and overall budgets), how expensive everything has got from materials such as tarmac or copper, to financial/debt services.
The way that local government is funded has to change. It has to move towards a more localised means of taxation and funding, shifting away from the centralised model we currently have. That’ll no happen anytime soon given the upheaval involved across multiple government departments and the general amount of admin work involved in changing your entire bureaucratic/tax system.
They should build a double decker bridge to Fife
Maybe they should defund the black hole. Seems pretty dangerous, and if it’s costing them that much…
But then again, if it swallows the city whole, that’s a net saving
Albert Museum, Discovery ship and now they have a Black hole! They just showing off now.
At least when you consider this is around £100 per person, it should be possible to find ways to acquire the funding.
If anything this is really good news compared to most councils.
Bit of a surprise as Dundee is nearly central belt and the SNP do seem to hate anything outside this area.
Gosh. If Potholes are not enough, we now have black holes in every budget…
It’s basically caused by a perfect storm of several things:
1) The pandemic the Tory Government and SNP Scottish Government completely miscalculated the cost of post COVID recovery in terms of social services and mental health care
2) Instead of being honest with the public and raising taxes to pay for the pandemic recovery the Tories did the opposite just as AI starts to take off
3) It’s estimated AI will replace 30% of the workforce but neither the Tories or Labour have coherent plans to plug the 30% drop in Income Taxes that will follow
4) Labour and the Scottish Government have awarded the public sector large pay rises to avoid industrial action this week it’s expected Employers National Contribution are going to be increased. This is a double whammy as the wage bill is much higher than budgeted for and now employers on costs will be higher on top of that. Reducing the amount left to deliver more services.
5) For purely political reasons the Scottish Government forced Local Councils to freeze Council Tax even though they knew most Councils were facing deficits
There are options open to the Scottish government they can consider stopping provision of free services and transfer these savings to councils. They can allow councils to raise Council Tax by more than inflation.
The basic question is do we want our councils to do a Birmingham and collapse?
12 comments
How is sort of thing allowed to happen? Do they not have their finances audited every year?
Council has been SNP ruled for over 20 years so no use blaming the tories.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_formula
Yes blame the snp. Read this and educate yourself.
Falkirk had 25mil debt so try harder Dundee.
Similar happening across Scotland. Last week it was reported that Edinburgh council faces a £100million black hole
https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/edinburgh-council-could-forced-make-30217646
Councillors are voting this week on proposed cuts which includes almost £5million to be slashed from health and social care grants.
The Labour run council there blames SNP entirely (as the Daily Record reporter writes in the above link) but fails to mention pressures from wage increases, inflation, and increased demand on services. It also fails to mention the interest on PFI repayments which has reached £20 million in some years for Edinburgh council.
The chief problem however is that Edinburgh remains the lowest funded local authority in Scotland, yet it’s supposed to run services (cleansing, culture, maintainance…) to support over twice its resident population because students at the 4 universities don’t contribute council tax (their accommodation doesn’t pay business rates) nor do the thousands of annual visitors (yet)
Nobody is shocked by stories like this.
We’ve known that councils have been starved of funding for 15 years. Coupled with other public services being starved of funding, wthis has put further demand on councils as more of the public using council services such as social care etc.
The general public have no idea how much councils are statutory obliged to deliver, how much resources have dwindled (both in terms of staffing numbers and overall budgets), how expensive everything has got from materials such as tarmac or copper, to financial/debt services.
The way that local government is funded has to change. It has to move towards a more localised means of taxation and funding, shifting away from the centralised model we currently have. That’ll no happen anytime soon given the upheaval involved across multiple government departments and the general amount of admin work involved in changing your entire bureaucratic/tax system.
They should build a double decker bridge to Fife
Maybe they should defund the black hole. Seems pretty dangerous, and if it’s costing them that much…
But then again, if it swallows the city whole, that’s a net saving
Albert Museum, Discovery ship and now they have a Black hole! They just showing off now.
At least when you consider this is around £100 per person, it should be possible to find ways to acquire the funding.
If anything this is really good news compared to most councils.
Bit of a surprise as Dundee is nearly central belt and the SNP do seem to hate anything outside this area.
Gosh. If Potholes are not enough, we now have black holes in every budget…
It’s basically caused by a perfect storm of several things:
1) The pandemic the Tory Government and SNP Scottish Government completely miscalculated the cost of post COVID recovery in terms of social services and mental health care
2) Instead of being honest with the public and raising taxes to pay for the pandemic recovery the Tories did the opposite just as AI starts to take off
3) It’s estimated AI will replace 30% of the workforce but neither the Tories or Labour have coherent plans to plug the 30% drop in Income Taxes that will follow
4) Labour and the Scottish Government have awarded the public sector large pay rises to avoid industrial action this week it’s expected Employers National Contribution are going to be increased. This is a double whammy as the wage bill is much higher than budgeted for and now employers on costs will be higher on top of that. Reducing the amount left to deliver more services.
5) For purely political reasons the Scottish Government forced Local Councils to freeze Council Tax even though they knew most Councils were facing deficits
There are options open to the Scottish government they can consider stopping provision of free services and transfer these savings to councils. They can allow councils to raise Council Tax by more than inflation.
The basic question is do we want our councils to do a Birmingham and collapse?
Comments are closed.