Axe threat returns for Highland libraries, museums and leisure centres
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LIBRARIES, museums and leisure centres could be in the firing line once again as Highland Council battles to plug a gaping hole in the budget.
And council assets such as disused schools and offices could be sold off on the cheap to cut overheads and maintenance costs.
Finance committee chairman Bill Fernie said councillors in the ruling Independent group would spend the next few months going over the council’s outgoings line by line to find extra savings after it emerged last week that the local authority is facing a £46million shortfall.
He said: "We will be revisiting some of the potential budget savings that were rejected by the past administration and High Life Highland will be among them. They were very good at finding the savings we asked them to find last time around but sorry, we just have to look at everything."
High Life Highland is the council’s arms length organisation that runs libraries, leisure centres, museums and art galleries.
The council reduced its £14million budget by £1.9million in December in a move that will see the loss of 20 library worker posts. It is hoped there will be no compulsory redundancies.
But the council stopped short of imposing a further budget cut of £865,000 after High Life Highland chief executive Ian Murray said the extra savings could mean the closure of Inverness Museum and Art Gallery.
Addressing the budget black hole yesterday, Councillor Fernie said he was convinced more savings could be squeezed out of the council without having to cut front-line services and jobs but he said no stone would be left unturned.
The pledge comes days after chief executive Steve Barron told councillors the budget shortfall could be as high as £46million. The savings must be found over the next three years with the sharpest part of the axe falling next year when more than £20million must be saved.
Councillor Fernie said: "There’s no doubt about it - it’s pretty daunting task but there are still places to go and look where we might be able to come up with some savings that will not affect jobs or services. There are still efficiencies to be drilled out of the system. I’m talking about budget savings that for various reasons might not have been taken in the past."
He said departments could merge and the council’s long-list of buildings assets could be sold off to community groups under new incentives to hand disused buildings to other groups.
High Life Highland said it could not comment until it saw a list of agreed proposals.
However, opposition Liberal Democrat councillor Carolyn Caddick said "chipping away at the edges" would not make the savings.
She said the council would need to start thinking about cutting back the big ticket budget spends like teachers’ salaries.
Councillor Caddick said the £51million package the Scottish Government provided for councils to maintain teacher numbers and pupil/teacher ratios for 2015, at 2014 levels, did not match the savings the council identified last year when it proposed to cut teacher numbers as part of the 2015/16 budget.
She said: "It’s the teachers’ pay that is the bulk of the education budget. If we’re not going to touch the number of teachers and what we pay them what else can we do? At the end of the day we have to make a stand against the Scottish Government.
"They’re putting Highland Council between a rock and a hard place. They’re saying our grant might get cut back but at the same time we can’t reduce the number of teachers and we can’t raise council tax or we will be financially penalised. We need to get ourselves back in position where we have local control."
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said local government has been treated fairly despite the UK Government cuts to the Scottish Budget.
She said: "Future allocations beyond the 2015-16 budget are completely dependent upon the outcome of the UK Spending Review which is expected to take place later in the year.
"The Scottish Government has, however, put forward alternative UK spending plans that would mean modest year-on-year increases in funds available for vital front-line services, including those delivered in partnership with local government."
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