Highland Council discovers £33m budget black hole
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HIGHLAND Council has discovered a £33 million black hole in its budget.
Councillors learned today (Thursday) that the estimated gap in the budget had rocketed from £13.251 million to £46.288 million over the next three years.
Over £21.5m of that will need to be found next year.
Steve Barron, chief executive, sent councillors an email with the shock figure today.
The gap for this year was £2.6 million and that was taken from the council’s reserves leaving £14.5 million in that pot.
Cromarty Firth councillor Maxine Smith, the former budget leader, said next year would be the toughest as more than £21.5m would need to be found.
She said: "It will be interesting to see if we are now going to have to look at the education budget when I actually protected it."
She said teachers’ pensions, jobs and hours were safeguarded, but school facilities might have to be cut.
She said the unpopular plan to cut the school day could not be revisited next year due to the Scottish Government’s teacher number freeze but it may well be back on the agenda for future years.
Education committee chairman Drew Millar said education would have to bear some of the brunt.
The Skye councillor said: "We are going to have to look at everything. Things that were sacrosanct will no longer be. Everything is going to have to come into the picture."
In his email to members this morning, Steve Barron says: "The principle reasons for the change are revised assumptions of a real cut in grant funding and government policy changes in respect of pensions and national insurance.
"Of immediate concern is the gap for 2016/17 which stands at £21.622 million. It is inevitable that the council is going to have to make significant reductions in service to balance the budget, which will in turn have staffing implications.
"At this stage it is too early to say how this may be progressed, but this is on top of existing savings proposals and represents a big challenge for the council."
