Fife Council Leader: £91m Savings Needed

David Ross has written to Fife's MSPs and MPs to ask them to raise concerns about the level of cuts to the Fife Council budget with Deputy First Minister, John Swinney MSP.

In the letter, the Council Leader explains the financial impact of the draft Scottish Budget set out earlier this month.

He says Fife Council will need make an additional £17m savings next year. They were expecting around £21 million of planned savings, but now say as a result of John Swinney's budget, a total of £91m in savings over the next 3 years will now need to be made.
 
Cllr Ross says,

''This level of reduction in grant from the Scottish Government will inevitably have a serious impact on local services and jobs.  Constraints placed on councils regarding education and council tax make the task of producing a balanced budget even more difficult.
 
We have been trying to plan our finances and services over the longer term but this additional cut in our grant has come out of the blue with very little prior warning.
 
Cuts by the Tory Government in Westminster are undoubtedly having a negative impact on Fife, but the Chancellor's recent UK budget wasn't quite as bad as everyone was expecting.  So it's difficult to understand why John Swinney's budget is so much worse than predicted for local councils in Scotland.
 
I am asking all Fife's MSPs and MPs, regardless of political party, to raise their concerns with Mr Swinney about the impact these additional cuts will have on our services here in Fife.''
 
The Council's Administration will present its own draft budget to the Executive Committee on 12th January for a period of public consultation prior to the formal budget setting at the Council meeting on 11th February.