Cuts, council tax and care homes will no doubt be among the main talking points as Fife Council decides its budget for the coming financial year.
With the council needing to save around £120 million over the next four years, councillors at Fife House will be faced with difficult decisions about how it can continue to deliver better services with less and target support to the most vulnerable.
As ever, though, the devil will be in the detail, and a full range of spending and savings proposals will finally be unveiled by the SNP/Lib Dem administration today.
Education, social work, police and fire, housing and communities, environment and development, finance and resources and performance and organisational support services have all been asked to come up with savings options in line with agreed targets, with the most controversial such as the decision to privatise care home provision likely to be given a good airing in the council chamber.
Fife’s council tax level will similarly be set, although the SNP government’s commitment to freezing council tax for 2011-12 will almost certainly be honoured.
Proposals for council rents and other charges will also be outlined later today, with rent expected to increase by as much as 4.2% this year.ShortfallWhile details of savings proposals will not be officially known until today, one thing is for sure the outlook isn’t going to be much brighter, with the council expecting a cumulative budget shortfall for 2013-14 that could be nearly three times the amount being faced this year.
Brian Livingston, head of finance, said, “The budget for 2011-12 and future years, at least until 2014-15, will be extremely challenging for the council.
“Based on the assumptions contained in the report there is an estimated budget gap of £33.752 million in 2011-12. This figure is estimated to rise to a cumulative budget gap of £97.741 million by 2013-14.
“At this stage we only have absolute certainty around the figures for 2011-12, and therefore future years should be regarded as indicative only and as a guide to the potential scale of the financial challenges that lie ahead.
“Nevertheless, in setting the budget for 2011-12, it is important that elected members have regard to the implications of any decisions on future years.
“The estimated budget gap in future years and the requirement to consider ongoing workforce reduction as a means of closing the gap necessitates the need to maintain a high level of council balances to finance the required change.”
The budget also comes after the wide-ranging Balancing The Books public consultation, which urged Fifers to have their say on where money could and should be spent.