A Special Meeting was held on Thursday 12 January to allow the Council to consider the local government funding settlement for 2017/18 for East Dunbartonshire.
The Council Leader confirmed, “At our previous Council meeting on 22 December, we agreed to hold a Special Council meeting last night to further consider the information on the Finance Settlement which has been provided.
“The Council is disappointed at our reduced funding settlement, meaning we have yet more challenging decisions to make to find significant further savings when we set the Council Budget for the coming year on 23 February.
“We are required to confirm to the Scottish Government by Friday 20 January whether we accept our settlement, and at our meeting it was unanimously agreed that there was no alternative. How could there be when the Cabinet Secretary’s offer states ‘for those authorities not agreeing the offer, a revised and inevitably less favourable offer will be made.’
“I will now write to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance to confirm the Council’s position but I will also take the opportunity to express my extreme disappointment at the level and the terms of the offer.”
The report to Council confirmed that as a result of the Scottish Government announcement on local government funding for the coming financial year, the funding gap to continue to deliver current services in the area is in the region of £14.4 million. This is as a result of the 5% reduction in East Dunbartonshire’s General Revenue Grant and a national reduction in the level of Non-Domestic rates. These are the two main elements of Council funding.
Additional other funding streams identified in the Scottish Government’s Draft Budget will partially offset the funding gap, reducing the funding gap to £11.7 million. But some of these are ring-fenced for specific purposes such as additional funding for addressing the attainment gap in schools and additional funding for Health and Social Care
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