Fife Council’s Labour leader has pledged to publish every budget option as the local authority struggles to bridge a £100 million funding gap.
The infamous ‘blue book’, detailing advice from council officers on the likely impact on all savings they have put forward for consideration, has found itself at the centre of controversy lately.
Now Alex Rowley is asking for cross-party cooperation to agree a way forward for publishing all the savings proposals being brought forward to balance the council’s books.
As local authorities across the country struggle to maintain the level of amenities they provide there is concern that many services could simply disappear.
Mr Rowley said: “Fife Council faces a £100 million budget gap over the next four years between what we get from the Scottish Government and what we need to continue to provide the services at the current rate.
“We are continuing to look at all areas to gain efficiencies, cut waste and bureaucracy but the reality is if we are to meet our legal requirement to produce a balanced budget each year then there are things we do now that will have to stop,” said Mr Rowley.
He said part of the process councillors use to put a budget together involves council officials from each service being asked to identify proposals that will make up a percentage cut in their budget.
These suggestions are then put before councillors on a confidential basis for their consideration. This is a practice that has been carried out in Fife Council for well over a decade.
But Mr Rowley said now was the time for informed debate.
“It is very easy to oppose everything but I think every elected councillor has a responsibility to say how they would balance the budget as they are legally required to do rather than just say what they are against,” he said.
The secrecy around the document so called simply because of the folder it is stored in provoked an angry exchange last year when former SNP Council leader Peter Grant said he had no choice but to go down the route of lodging Freedom of Information requests to have its contents open to a wider audience.
At that time he said he had done so because the Labour group decided to change the rules on how the council consulted on its budget.
However, his remarks provoked an angry response from Mr Rowley, who said Mr Grant had had five years in which to publish the material but had not.
Meanwhile trade unions waded into the row, accusing the SNP of playing politics with their members’ job.
In the existing book, which has been brought forward over the last four or five years, there are around £48m worth of savings proposals but many of these would have a very real detrimental impact on services and jobs, Mr Rowley added.
“There are also proposals to introduce charges in new areas and we are conducting a number of major reviews that we believe will bring in tens of millions of pounds by changing the way we do things.
“I am proposing that all this information is published so the public of Fife can see and have a view on the options we are considering.”