Councillors warn 'unfunded' council tax freeze will worsen the bite of inflation
Opposition councillors are warning inflation will lead to ''significant cuts'' in Dundee City Council's budget up to 2015.
- By Grant Smith
- Published in the Courier : 30.12.11
- Published online : 30.12.11 @ 09.29am
Labour group leader Kevin Keenan said the Scottish Government is ''demanding the impossible'' from local authorities in order to meet the SNP's pledge to freeze council tax.
The amount the council receives in grant from the government will fall slightly in 2012-13 to £316.4 million, with allocations for the following two years expected to be £318 million and £318.2 million.
Mr Keenan and his colleagues have used Treasury statistics to work out what these sums will be worth in real terms once inflation is taken into account. They reckon next year's grant will be worth only £308 million, dropping to £302 million the following year and to £294 million in 2014-15.
Mr Keenan said: ''These figures show how unfairly councils have been treated by the Scottish Government to pay for its five-year council tax freeze that it has never fully funded.
''The Scottish Government is demanding the impossible from councils. It orders councils to maintain vital public services while slashing their budgets with deep cuts at the same time.
''For its loyal council supporters to suggest otherwise is to misrepresent the position of councils that through no fault of their own have been forced to carry out cuts to their important services.''
The city council's SNP administration has already said it will be seeking savings of £3.4 million in next year's budget, taking into account its £1.4 million drop in central government grant and its need to maintain council tax levels.
Liberal Democrat group leader Fraser Macpherson said: ''The SNP continually blames Westminster for everything, but the reality is that the SNP finance cabinet secretary John Swinney has a budget that is in real terms billions higher than that available to the Scottish Government when the parliament was first established in 1999.''
Mr Swinney has welcomed confirmation that Dundee and the other 31 councils in Scotland have agreed to accept his funding offer for 2012-13, which commits them to freezing council tax for another year and maintaining police and teacher numbers.
He said a household on the average council tax band will have saved more than £500 by the end of the next financial year as a result, with poorest households gaining most.
Mr Swinney said: ''Despite the most dramatic reduction in public spending ever imposed on Scotland by the UK Government, over the next three years local government will receive a larger share of Scottish Government funds than in 2007-08.
''Like the Scottish Government, councils face a number of competing pressures on their budgets, so I am delighted the package I offered to local authorities has been accepted in principle by every council.
''This will see the council tax freeze continue for another year, putting over £500 into the pockets of hard-pressed households since 2008, while maintaining teacher numbers and the number of police officers on our streets — benefiting every household in Scotland.''
Government figures show that Dundee City Council will see its grant increase by only 0.16% between now and 2014-15, one of the smallest rises of any local authority. The grant for Angus will increase by only 0.32%. Fife does better with a 1.57% increase over that period and Perth and Kinross will see its grant rise by 1.97%.
However, the impact of inflation means all these councils are facing real-terms cuts, putting pressure on jobs and services.
09.45am - 30.12.2011 Ian Wallace - Dundee, Scotland Report This
I cannot understand why as an SNP ran council in Dundee,they have not scrapped the no redundancy policy given the current climate. That would make it easy for the council to get rid of the dead wood within council departments
12.06pm - 30.12.2011 Bob Fisher - Dundee, Scotland Report This
The council have already given early retirement in a few areas such as education and social work with no discernible impact which proves both SNP and Labour controlled administrations were running overstaffed at the taxpayers expense.
12.15pm - 30.12.2011 Cory Douglas Campbell - Maryfield, Scotland Report This
Cut the community officers & their budgets for a start, who needs any more taxpayer funded "WELL DONE US" propaganda? 2nd cut the # of DCC's middle managers, Baxter Park has more managers then gardeners. 3rd cut out the waste of the Dundee Partnership & their LCPP's, they don't listen to residents.
01.06am - 31.12.2011 Ben, student - Dundee, UK Report This
I can't believe that the 23rd December As WELL as the Monday and Tuesday was a public holiday for the council. THREE days? Even the NHS only got two, and even then it ran a service over this time.
06.05pm - 01.01.2012 Stuart Allan - Dundee, Scotland Report This
As usual, the punch bag that is the public sctr gets a beating with lazy, misinformed criticism and from those with a grudge. The public sctr provides essential services that would otherwise be non-existant or prohibitively expensive. We cannot afford the private sector to step in, even if it could.
06.19pm - 01.01.2012 Stuart Allan - Dundee, Scotland Report This
@Ian; the Scot govt has urged a no COMPULSORY redundancy policy whenever possible. Thousands of VOLUNTARY redundancies are occurring. Within the UK, it is estimated over 50% of job losses due to this downturn will be public sctr, despite making up just over 20% of the workforce. Not in Scotland :)
01.47pm - 02.01.2012 niall macr - Fife, Scotland Report This
Howsabout Dundee's councillors turn down a pay rise and freeze their salaries- now that would be something to see. What say you, Mr. Guild?
09.20am - 03.01.2012 mark - dundee, scotland Report This
niall perhaps those people from fife and those from the surrouding areas should pay to use the services in dundee on a daily basis, after all they come here to work and use all the facilities but pay nothing, it would help reduce the burden on dundonians.
10.15am - 04.01.2012 T. Butchers - Dundee, UK Report This
I'm going to call the council's "Diversity and Equality, Health and Safety, Climate, Security and Change Facilitating Officer" and see if they can suggest savings.....
10.12pm - 04.01.2012 Stuart Allan - Dundee, Scotland Report This
T.Butchers; so ... should DCC ignore racism, put their employees in potentially dangerous situations, ignore legally binding climate laws, take a fingers-crossed attitude to security and have its practices fixed in aspic in perpetuity? And do you think large private corps don't have these officers?
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