An Angus councillor has questioned whether council cuts have been necessary after a budget underspend of millions of pounds emerged.
Last year council departments spent £11.8m less than was budgeted.
Debt charges were £2.9m lower than expected and council tax revenue was £1.1m greater than anticipated meaning the council had a surplus of around £15m.
In recent years there has been a variety of cuts to public services with playparks, public toilets, recycling services and tenancy support officers among the areas targeted.
The council has been warned by the Accounts Commission that more cuts are needed to meet its £26.5 million savings target over the next three years.
However, Arbroath councillor David Fairweather said the underspend indicated that the council hadn’t been “getting it right”.
He said: “If we are cutting services and charging people £25 for their garden bin to be collected, which used to be free, is it right that there’s millions of pounds left over at the end of the year?
“The council is there to provide services. It has been given the money but it seems that the administration are quite happy to keep saving this money but also start to punish the public by making cutbacks and charging them for services that were well afforded.
“If the council has a big underspend like this, to me the council has got it wrong.”
There has been a total of £34.5m on departmental underspends over the past five years and savings on budgeted debt charges were £9.8m over the same period.
Council tax receipts have also been more than expected in each of the past five years.
However, the council’s finance spokesman Alex King described the practice of not spending all of the money the council receives as “commendable”.
Addressing the underspend at a meeting of the scrutiny and audit committee he said: “I’m slightly worried about the overemphasis of the fact that this council operates within budget consistently year on year.
“That’s a good thing when you do your household finance, it’s a good thing when it’s business finance, but suddenly it’s a bad thing when it’s a public authority.
“The Policy and Budget Strategy Group is looking at everywhere we can reduce the costs of running Angus Council.
“As far as I’m concerned a budget surplus, an underspend on budget, is excellent practice as long as the areas where the underspend has occurred are critically examined.
“If there’s a consistent underlying budget saving then the budget is reduced. If it’s a one off then it’s used to meet one off expenditure in the budget in the next year.”
Brechin and Edzell councillor Bob Myles also noted that the underspend against budget “seemed to be increasing every year”.
He added: “That’s better than having an overspend but we do have to be careful that we’re not cutting our cloth too tight and make sure that the monies we do have are utilised fully.”
