East Renfrewshire Council still faces a £30m budget gap and up to 550 job cuts over the next three years despite extra funding claims, council leader Owen O’Donnell has warned.
Cllr O’Donnell, Labour, pledged to continue pushing for more money after a “very disappointing” budget settlement from the Scottish Government.
Following the “largest response” to a budget consultation, he believes residents would prefer increased charges, such as a “higher than normal” council tax rise, rather than cuts to services.
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Options drawn up for the consultation suggest major savings in the council’s education department – and he admitted there is “real worry” over the impact on pupil performance.
Reducing hours for primary school students would be a “last resort”, Cllr O’Donnell insisted.
He said: “No one goes into politics to manage decline, you are there to invest and improve services. That’s just incredibly difficult with this budget environment.”
Against a backdrop of more than £80m of savings since 2015/16, the council leader issued a stark warning over East Renfrewshire’s financial position in October, as inflation soared to 10% and a flat cash settlement from the government was expected.
Before Christmas, acting finance secretary John Swinney announced an extra £550m for councils in the Scottish Government’s budget for 2023/24. He said this was a “real terms budget increase of 1.3% next year”.
Government figures showed East Renfrewshire would receive £222.3m, up from £205.5m in 2022/23 – a rise of 8.2%. Mr Swinney said councils had asked for more funding but “there was no way in the current climate we were going to be able to meet the request in full”.
However, Cllr O’Donnell said there had been “no effective change” and there is “a lot of smoke and mirrors”. He added the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities [COSLA] found the £550m figure was “effectively closer to £70m” once Scottish Government commitments, pay awards and new initiatives had been stripped out.
“That’s largely going back to the Scottish Government in increased payments on council properties such as schools and council buildings due to increased non-domestic rate charges,” he said.
East Renfrewshire Council’s shortfall for the coming year, 2023/24, is expected to be around £20m. “There are some reserves which we can help manage the timing of that, but all using reserves does is just defer it,” the council leader said, describing the situation as “pretty grim”.
A budget strategy group is considering options to plug the gap and will take into consideration feedback from residents, with over 1,500 people submitting responses.
“Not surprisingly education remains a key priority for residents,” Cllr O’Donnell said. “I think there is an anticipation from residents as well that in order to reduce some of these cuts that we might have to consider higher than normal council tax increases.”
Asked if residents had favoured increased charges over cuts, he said: “I think they would, on balance. They would consider that.
“That was interesting because residents are under a lot of pressure anyway from cost of living, but it shows you how much value they put on the services we deliver.”
He insisted no decision on a council tax increase had been made.
A budget briefing revealed up to 550 jobs could be at risk over three years. Cllr O’Donnell said the council is trying “to protect as many jobs and services as possible, but we can’t protect everything”.
Use of reserves could help “defer some of the decisions on that”, he said. “It’s a serious issue for the staff and it’s not great for morale when they know that this is hanging over the council.”
East Renfrewshire has a reputation for high quality education and Cllr O’Donnell admitted it was a “real worry” that could change due to the “severity of cuts”.
Officials reported a saving of £13.6m could be made from school management budgets, but this could see funding for staff working with the lowest-performing 20% of pupils reduced and cut the number of pupil support teachers. The pupil week in primary schools could also be reduced from 25 hours to 22.5.
Cllr O’Donnell said it was “heartbreaking” for the education team which has developed “the best schools in Scotland”. “We know that’s important for the life chances of all the pupils within East Renfrewshire.”
Other savings options include changing the three-weekly waste collection to four-weekly, moving to a fortnightly food and garden waste collection and closing the Barrhead household recycling service.
Reducing grass cutting in parks, closing grass football pitches, increasing burial charges and reducing road and pavement repairs budgets are also among the options. The council leader said they were all “grades of terrible”.
In previous years, extra funding has been found by the Scottish Government ahead of council’s setting their budgets, however Cllr O’Donnell said he hadn’t heard “any whispers along that sort of line”
“If it is, it’s likely to be miniscule in the whole scheme of things, we are not going to get £30m covered.”
He said COSLA would be “ramping up” its funding campaign again. The body has said £1 billion is needed and Cllr O’Donnell said that “only keeps us where we were”.
After the last full council meeting, East Renfrewshire’s SNP group accused Cllr O’Donnell of ignoring the UK Government’s role in providing funding to the Scottish Government.
Cllr Chris Lunday, SNP, said a motion from Cllr O’Donnell omitted “the root of our issues and completely ignores the fact the Scottish Government’s budget has been cut in real terms year on year since the Tories came to power in 2010”.
Cllr O’Donnell responded: “The Scottish Government are our paymasters and that is why the motion was about the Scottish Government. Bringing in the UK Government was distraction and grandstanding.”
He added all 32 council leaders at COSLA had “unanimously agreed that we need to do more lobbying on the Scottish Government”. “There was not one single mention of the UK Government.”
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