Aberdeen Council To Slash Budget Again

EDUCATION budgets could be slashed and a raft of other services cut back after Aberdeen City Council revealed it needed to save £25 million next year.

Less than a year after it imposed massive cutbacks, officials at Aberdeen City Council unveiled even more cuts for next year’s budget.

Included in the proposals, which will be voted on in December, are:

• A £10m cut in the learning budget, with potentially more school closures and cuts in staff.
• £8.5m slashed from the social work budget, leading to an introduction in charges of £3 per day for day care for older people and people with learning difficulties.
• Closing Tullos and Linksfield swimming pools and cutting the hours of other pools and sports centres.
• Shutting Mastrick, Dyce, Bucksburn, King Street and East North Street toilets.
• 400 job cuts.
• Introducing a £25 charge to have a disabled parking bay outside people’s homes.
• Further cuts in winter maintenance, such as road gritting, which was slashed by £400,000 last year.
• A £3.7m cut in funding to the voluntary sector.
• Raising burial charges from £650 to £750 for residents and £970 to £1,070 for non-residents.
• Put on hold plans to introduce extra PE teachers to increase the hours of exercise children get in schools to two hours a week.
• Cut the Garthdee Alpine Ski Centre grant in future years and scrap funding for the International Football Festival.

Interim chief executive Robert Coomber, who is due to hand over the reins to new boss Sue Bruce on December 1, had asked all council directors to find savings of 6% in their departments.

He has put forward a package of £30m in cuts, but the council will be expected to make £25.2m to balance the budget.

The council needed to make £50m of savings this year, but is only likely to make about £35m, with the remainder included in the savings needed for next year.

Yesterday’s announcement means the council would have made £60m of cuts in just two years.

Next year’s budget will be £459m, with a grant from the Scottish Government of £325m.

A total of £10.3m could be cut from the council’s learning budget – which includes education, £8.5m from social work and £1.2m from housing.

In releasing the documents, members of the city’s leadership board were insistent that no decisions had been made yet by politicians.

But council leader Kate Dean said: “We have to do this. We have to have a balanced budget.

“The council has already made tough decisions.

“And it will need to make tough decisions again.”

The report warned that one option open to councillors was to review an earlier decision to save closure-threatened city schools Kittybrewster, Stoneywood and Middleton Park, which could have shut as part of the council’s schools shake up.

But the report also suggested not closing any schools as part of next year’s budget.

Depute leader Kevin Stewart said: “You do not make £25m worth of savings without having some affect on service delivery.”

But he said the council would try to keep this impact to a minimum.

He added the council was trying to be as open with the public about the process as possible, with the decisions being taken far earlier than the usual February meeting.

He said: “This is the most detailed proposals you will have seen.

“I said at the start of the year I did not want the budget to be decided in the same way again.”

About 400 city council jobs could go, although some of them would be jobs which have been left vacant.

Council officials hope they will be able to cover the job losses by early retirements and voluntary redundancies. Among the massive cutbacks this year was the closure of Bon Accord Baths.

Mr Coomber said council officers had to offer realistic savings to avoid the situation this year, when the council announced less than the £50m of savings were set to be made.

Cllr Dean said Mr Coomber had already rejected some savings put forward by departments.

The council will also approach the Scottish Government to borrow up to £10m to fund compensation and severance costs.

The report said no allowance had been made for a drop in council tax collection rates, a harsh winter or changes in the elderly population.

Cllr Stewart said he hoped this year’s budget would put the council back on track.

But he said: “I don’t have a crystal ball, I can’t tell what is going to happen in the future. We are heading into a recession.”