SIC reaches turning point on spending
SHETLAND Islands Council is forging ahead with a tough programme to save £7 million during the coming year by raising ferry fares, the price of school meals and meals on wheels, and charging pupils for instrument tuition.
Councillors presiding over one of Scotland’s wealthiest local authorities were told by finance boss Graham Johnston on Wednesday that they had reached a “turning point” and had to show restraint.
Other cuts proposed are reducing services and grants the council is not obliged to provide, cutting back on travel subsistence for councillors and officials, and curtailing the local authority’s repair and maintenance programme.
Approving the £106 million revenue budget yesterday (Wednesday), councillors agreed to freeze council tax at £1,053 for a band D property.
Members were adamant that savings could be achieved without compulsory redundancies, although the council plans to save around £1.5 million through natural wastage.
Attempts to prevent the axe falling on free instrument tuition failed by nine votes to 11, and efforts to reduce the ferry far increase from five to two per cent were defeated by four votes to 15.
The council was left in no doubt that difficult times lie ahead with funding from central government to be cut by three per cent a year for the next six years, a cut of £18 million by 2016 for Shetland.
Raising the possibility of redundancies to balance the books, Shetland South councillor Allison Duncan was told this that this was dangerous talk.
Lerwick North member Allan Wishart said: “I want to put the message out very clearly that we are not contemplating redundancies. Talking about that is very premature and dangerous.”
Mr Duncan also questioned the amount the SIC spends on overtime (£2.4 million in 2009/10) and asked if more than the proposed 10 per cent savings on that budget could be achieved.
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He was told that many of the council’s services depended on overtime to provide the level of service islanders expected.
The council’s cultural spokesman Rick Nickerson accused the council of imposing “a tax on talent” by introducing a £160 per annum charge on instrument tuition, but failed to win enough support to exclude that item from the list of savings.
North Isles councillor Robert Henderson asked why folk living on the outer isles had to pay for higher ferry fares when people on Shetland’s mainland did not make a similar contribution, but won little support for reducing the fare increase.
In order to keep a tight rein on the budget, the full council will receive an update every six weeks on how its efforts to cut spending are going.
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