Fife Council is setting out how it will tackle a £100 million funding shortfall as it faces up to its most difficult financial challenge ever.
And the public is being asked to help investigate every piece of council expenditure as the massive belt-tightening exercise gets under way.
As a new academic study revealed Whitehall’s eight-year programme of budgetary cuts to Scottish public services is only 40% completed, Fife Council leader Alex Rowley told The Courier how his administration intends to face up to the budget deficit of more than £100m over the next four years.
Publishing a breakdown of the £1.1 billion revenue budget, Mr Rowley pledged Scotland’s third-largest council was determined to protect frontline services in social work and education as well as those which impact on the daily lives of people across the region refuse collection and street cleaning.
But he warned that while compulsory redundancies would be kept to a minimum, with a staff wage bill amounting to £501m almost half the local authority’s total expenditure jobs will be cut.
Mr Rowley said: “We are determined to protect frontline services in education and social work as well as those services which impact on our daily lives such as getting our buckets emptied, our streets kept clean and our parks maintained.
“But in everything we do we intend to have a root and branch review to make sure we are delivering in the most effective and efficient way possible.”
Mr Rowley warned every staff member must look towards a shake-up in the way they do their jobs.
He cited last October’s change over to a two shift refuge collection service as an example under the new arrangements bin collections now take place between 6am and 9pm on weekends, saving the local authority an estimated £800,000.
He said the workers had made the transition to save money and “every public servant must now be prepared to examine how they do things in this very difficult financial climate we are operating in”.
The largest cost goes on wages and the council leader has acknowledged that staffing will have to reduce to make the savings.
He said: “There are some things we do now that we will not be doing in the next few years and this will impact on staff which is our largest cost.
“We are refocusing our employment policies and while we will be continuing with a voluntary redundancy policy we do not intend to run with a blanket canvass of all staff.
“We will do all we can to avoid compulsory redundancies.”
Already set in motion are a number of strategic reviews around support services, transport and procurement which the council would expect to achieve significant savings.”
Mr Rowley said there had to be a balanced approach to balancing the books.
“In difficult times it is easy to say the answer to everything is charging, but a balance has to be struck.
“It is hard saying £100m is to come out the budget that is a significant amount of money and a proportion could be offset through charges, but we have got to get it right and consult.”
In an unprecedented move, the council is engaging with the public with a far-reaching consultation starting next month.
This will run over the next few years to engage with the public of Fife as the council faces up to the huge funding gap.
“We are not saying should we do this or not at the end of the day we as politicians have to take responsibility for the decisions which need to be made.
“By engaging with the wider communities across Fife we hope to get into a dialogue to let people have their views about they value in terms of services or where the council should no longer be doing things.”
Mr Rowley said a review of charging and concessions had been under way for some time now and this would now form part of the consultation.
Council officers have brought forward proposals ranging from increasing income by introducing a charge at park and ride sites across Fife along with an increase in the rail concession charge to removing the concession completely.
“Councils are unable to raise money from increasing the council tax and are increasingly looking at other options for income and while this is controversial we will be putting the option of additional charges out to consultation with the transport charges and concessions being included in the first consultation exercise.
“Council officers in each service have also been asked to identify 1.5% saving proposals from their budgets and all of these proposals will also be published for consultation this September.”