Council agrees Revenue Budget and Capital Programme for 2021/22

Date: 
Friday, 26 February, 2021

At its Special Council Meeting last night (Thursday 25 February), East Dunbartonshire Council agreed its General Revenue Budget for 2021/22 and its Revised 10 Year Capital Investment Plan for the area.

With estimated expenditure of just over £268.1 million for 2021/22 and income of £260.6 million, Councillors agreed to balance a financial gap of £7.5 million through the use of reserves whilst a number of options are progressed, these include:

  • Using a proportion of capital grant for revenue purposes,
  • a loans fund repayment holiday,
  • the use of capital receipts to fund revenue expenditure, and
  • a review of service contracts arrangements.

Funding to offset an increase in Council Tax was accepted, but with a plea that this funding should be baselined to avoid substantial increases in the future.

Joint Council Leader Andrew Polson explained, “We have committed to both a Council Tax freeze and to no increases to fees and charges across Council services. And whilst we welcome all funding to address the unprecedented impact of the global pandemic, it is essential that all local government additional Covid-19 costs are met. 

“In their report last month, Audit Scotland estimated that the funding announced in November 2020 met only 60-70% of the estimated £767 million financial cost of Covid-19 on Scottish councils. It is therefore critical that Scottish Government commits to this additional Council Tax funding year on year or we will potentially face even more significant rises in the future.” 

Tribute was paid to the Council’s workforce at the meeting.  Councillor Polson said, “We would like to once again thank and pay tribute to the fantastic efforts of our workforce over the unprecedented 12 months we have experienced. They are the life-force of this organisation and their resilience, flexibility and commitment to delivering critical and essential services to our communities this year has been simply amazing.”

In addition to setting the revenue budget a revised 10 year capital programme for 2021/22 and beyond was agreed, with commitment to significant investment across all of East Dunbartonshire.

Joint Council Leader Vaughan Moody highlighted, “Our ambitious capital programme continues our commitment to build a new Boclair Academy and a new Allander Leisure and Adult Day Care Centre in Bearsden, a new Additional Support Needs School and a Community Sports Complex in Kirkintilloch.

“In addition, there is a new £1million town centre improvement fund for Milngavie, a commitment to undertake a feasibility study to build a new Lenzie Academy and a further £5million across the programme for the schools ICT budget in recognition of the connectivity and hardware improvements critical to support the learning environment.”

Having proposed the Council budget recommendations, Councillor Moody sought cross party support to write to the First Minister to demand a fair funding settlement for local government, to both continue to respond to current community needs, and to work with those communities to recover from the impacts of this pandemic. 

He added, “I’m pleased we reached cross party agreement to insist on fair funding for local government, which is critical for us to deliver the services our communities need and deserve.

“We will also be emphasising that whilst we agree with the key principles highlighted in the Independent Review of Adult Social Care, it is local councils with our local knowledge and expertise and our local democratic accountability that are the organisations best placed to deliver on these principles.” 

The Council also committed to a consultation exercise later this year to seek community and stakeholder views on the budget and service priorities for the organisation as we recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Councillor Polson added, “We believe that our revenue and capital budget decisions truly offer the best possible outcomes for the people of East Dunbartonshire for the year ahead. And I’d encourage all of our residents to engage with us when we seek their views later this year on our future service and funding priorities. We will undertake this consultation when we have a clearer position of the continuing Covid situation.”

Here are the speeches made by the Joint Leaders at the budget meeting:

Joint Budget Leader Speeches 2021-22

 

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