Angus Council hits £10m cuts target but member warns of difficulty to ‘maintain high level’

Angus Council has scored a near perfect success rate in securing £10 million of savings in the past year as the authority heads towards setting another budget which will shave huge sums from spending.

Having set a 2019/20 objective of taking £10.2m from the balance sheet, scrutiny and audit councillors have been told the final figure for the end of the financial year is set to be £9.9m, equating to 97.6% of the target.

The reduction, comprising savings and base budget cuts, has been welcomed by councillors, but finance chiefs have set out the mid-term challenges which lie ahead and say they will require savings totalling more than £35m.

One senior administration councillor said that while the balance sheet success was welcome, it would be difficult for the authority to maintain its reduction performance.

Finance director Ian Lorimer highlighted key contributors to the change programme position, including almost £4.4m of savings through work carried out by the Angus Health and Social Care partnership.

An organisation-wide review of the arm’s length Angus Alive culture and leisure trust will deliver £300,000 of savings by the year end, with agile working, energy efficiency and the re-introduction of off-street parking charges, contributing to £888k of savings.

Mr Lorimer said: “Our innovative approach and forensic analysis across all areas of council service delivery has achieved savings of £2.4 million and identified a number of new change options for further consideration.”

The medium term budget position indicates required savings of £11.2m in 2021/22 and a further £9.5m the following year, to give a three-year figure in excess of £35m.

Figures suggest the council will be faced with coming up with additional ways of plugging £4m to £5m financial gaps in each of their next three budgets.

Former council coalition leader Bob Myles said the authority’s finance team deserved praise for securing the savings.

Brechin and Edzell Conservative Mr Myles said: “Achieving over 97% of savings is tremendous.

“I appreciate it is going to be difficult in the future to maintain that high level, but I would say well done on getting there.”

Angus is yet to confirm its council-tax setting date, but the process has already been engulfed in political animosity after administration councillors forced a special meeting on the issue of alternative budgets.

The move to require opposition politicians to present alternative spending plans 15-days ahead of the budget-setting meeting was agreed after administration members said it would bring common sense and transparency to the process.

Opposition SNP group figures claimed they had been “bullied” into the change.