The views of the party leaders ahead of this month's budget debate
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Life Council leaders are due to set the budget in just a few weeks time and it's
00:04going to be a challenging year. I've spoken to all four group leaders about
00:07their proposals and here's what they have to say.
00:09Well we're still working through our proposals for the budget this year and it's a very difficult year.
00:16There's a significant gap still between the cost of continuing our services and the funding that we're going to have available
00:27and we're trying to close that gap and the only two ways of doing that are either by making savings and cuts to services
00:36or by an increase in the council tax and we're looking at a balance between both.
00:43In terms of the budget gap, it was originally set at £11.6 million that we need to find
00:51but on top of that there are a number of other pressures
00:54so there is a significant overspend this year in health and social care
00:58and we expect that to be continued into the next year
01:02and that will have to be met by ourselves and our partners NHS Fife.
01:07The other big pressure is on our capital programme.
01:12We set a capital programme, maintaining our assets, things like roads, schools, other buildings and facilities.
01:22We set a 10 year capital programme.
01:24So when we set this the last time, since then, costs, particularly construction costs, have gone up considerably
01:35and similarly we pay for this, we take out loans, just like a mortgage.
01:43We take out a loan for this and we pay that back over the lifetime of the asset
01:49but unfortunately the loan charges, the interest rates, haven't come down as fast as were being predicted
01:55so we're looking to reduce our capital plan over the next 10 years by about 20%
02:03which is a huge amount of money, £200 million.
02:06So we're still struggling to actually square the circle in terms of our budget
02:16and basically we'll be looking at a combination of savings from services and a rise in council tax
02:23and at the moment we're still looking at up to 10% of a rise in council tax.
02:30That isn't unusual across Scotland.
02:34There are a number of other authorities that are looking at that level of council tax
02:40and it's a result of the past freezes in council tax that we've seen over the past decade really
02:51that even with a slightly better settlement from the Scottish Government this year than we were expecting
02:59it doesn't make up for years of underfunding in the past.
03:05So this is a pretty challenging budget that we've got at the moment
03:09and we're currently working through a number of scenarios that hopefully we'll balance at the end of the day.
03:15There are big challenges around the capital plan
03:18which is significantly oversupplied at the moment because of long-term inflation
03:23that's been high costs on the Belgian trade in particular
03:25and interest rates and the cost of borrowing is higher than council officers had assumed
03:30so there are issues in terms of that which are having an impact on the revenue account or the revenue budget.
03:36Our aims predominantly are to protect council tax rises and to protect teacher numbers
03:41that's two aims that we're hoping to achieve when we get to the end of deliberations
03:46and there are challenges around that the way that we've just discussed in terms of the capital plan.
03:52But we're determined, I know I've seen Councillor Ross in the paper just recently
03:57batting about a figure of 10% nearly, that would be unacceptable to us
04:01and we're looking to try and bring that figure down quite a bit if we can
04:05and that's what our aim is and that's what we're working hard to do just now.
04:08Overall in terms of teacher numbers I was quite struck at the EIS meeting
04:12in terms of that investment versus some other types of investment
04:16and we've always been pretty clear that we're looking to make sure that teacher numbers are protected
04:21and indeed hopefully increased as well because I don't see how we can address the issues
04:27within the education which are varied and well documented as well.
04:32I don't see how we could address those issues with less teachers.
04:36I think we need more teachers and more investment in teaching
04:39and that's what we're certainly, it's going to be difficult in this budget setting
04:43but we have had the additional money from the Scottish Government both on teacher numbers
04:48and additional support so we would hope that gets invested properly here in the council
04:52and we are also looking very clearly to try and protect the education budget as a whole
04:58so that's something we've put on the record and we will follow through on.
05:02So it is a challenge, we're still to get to the bottom of the numbers
05:06and you'll see we're working day and night to try and get to that firm proposal
05:11that we could put forward as a budget in the Chamber in a couple of weeks' time
05:15but the key priority for us, keep council tax rises to a minimum, protect teacher numbers
05:20and that's hopefully what we'll do.
05:22Okay, so I guess the budget situation from my group's perspective is
05:26we are well aware of the financial constraints that are going to be in place
05:32we know there's more money has come from the UK Government this year
05:36however we know that not all of that is going to be passed on
05:40from the Scottish Government to local authorities
05:43and for us that means obviously looking at what our group's priorities are
05:49what the council's priorities have to be and balancing that against
05:54I guess the fact that we've got the national insurance increase in contributions for employers
06:01which is not going to be fully covered so how do we balance that
06:04and also of course we've got the big question of the council tax
06:08we had a Scottish Government freeze on the council tax for over a decade
06:12and of course the result of that is that that builds up
06:14and now we've got more of a pressure that's coming in there
06:16so I guess in terms of my group's priorities
06:20the first thing really for myself which I've been talking about for over a year now
06:24is really in terms of education and the rollout of one-to-one devices
06:28for our young people to ensure they're not left behind
06:30we know other local authorities are doing this
06:32we know the impact it's now having on attainment
06:34so that's going to cost a lot, there's no doubt about that
06:37but I think we have to definitely move forward with that
06:40so in terms of budget proposals I'll be wanting to see firm commitment
06:44I guess in the administration proposals for that
06:47we're also keen to see that funding around roads is maintained
06:53because our roads here in Fife are not actually as bad as in a lot of parts of the country
06:57I know that from driving around elsewhere
06:59however that's really been because we've continued to see money put into the roads budget
07:04and we don't want to see a reduction in that
07:06so that's whether or not it's the small sort of jobs
07:09in terms of potholes and things
07:10or actually infrastructure of our roads that the council is responsible for
07:14so we'll also be wanting to see a commitment on that
07:18we also know we've got pressures in terms of our high schools as well
07:21because of course Fife missed out on leap three
07:24for funding for Glenwood and Glenrothes
07:26which means there are upgrades needed at those schools
07:29and also we've got Balweary High School as well
07:31which we need a new high school for
07:33and again we've got no funding from the Scottish Government
07:37so there's going to have to be investment made in that as well
07:40so I guess those are some of the areas that we're looking to focus on
07:47going forward this year in the budget
07:50Yeah, we're obviously in a position right now
07:55because it's a minority administration
07:57Labour are needing the support of other parties
08:00so we have written to Labour
08:03to set out what our expectations would be
08:06for us to be able to vote for a budget
08:09some of this is looking at making sure
08:15that we don't have an undue impact on education
08:19we can't see cuts in education funding
08:22that is going to damage the education of our children and young people
08:29We're also really keen to make sure that
08:34roads funding is kept at a proper level
08:37that there's funding as well to deal with some of the flooding issues
08:41obviously we've seen the weather is getting worse and worse
08:46with the climate emergency
08:49and frankly we need to be as a council on the front foot there
08:54in tackling that
08:57There was also some proposals going around potentially
09:00of having really high inflation busting increases
09:03in some of the harbour fees
09:06it's a tough time for many people working in the fishing industry
09:11and we just felt that it would be unreasonable
09:15to have huge increases there
09:18so we've said to the administration that it needs to be more reasonable
09:22thought put into that
09:26On top of that as well there's a few projects
09:29in the capital budget that are important for us
09:32we need to see progress in these projects
09:36so there's the Fooquay Mill flooding scheme
09:40which the residents living in that area
09:43have been blighted by some really bad flooding in recent years
09:47so we need to see work pushed on ahead in that
09:51The Anshover Care Village as well
09:54is important there
09:57we obviously have an ageing population
10:00particularly in that area of Fife
10:03so we need to have that provision put in place
10:06and the Cooper Recycling Centre
10:09seems to have stalled on the progress there
10:14so those are three ongoing projects
10:18We just want to see some commitment from the administration
10:21and we're also keen to see work done
10:27for replacement swimming and sports provision
10:30in light of the closure of Inverkeeping High School
10:33which will be coming up
10:36so we've spoken to the administration
10:39and we've also written to the administration
10:42with what we want to see here
10:45So we're just kind of obviously waiting to see
10:48what they're going to come back with
10:51If they come back with a budget that covers this
10:54and is acceptable in other ways
10:57then hopefully we might be able to support it
11:00In an ideal world, it would be nice to have a budget
11:03that all the parties could agree on
11:06Whether that comes to pass or not, I don't know
11:09We need to see the detail ourselves
11:13of what the administration is going to come out with
11:16before we can agree to support it or not
11:19If they don't, we can always put up our own proposals
11:22at that point
11:25as could be other parties
11:28But it's maybe a case of waiting and seeing
11:31I think there is probably a general willingness
11:34to engage from all the parties in this
11:37Hopefully we can create something that will work
11:40not just for all the political parties
11:43but for all the people of faith