Highland Council could be forced to double spending cuts
Highland Council could be forced to double it's spending cuts for 2016/17 if local government grants are reduced.
Highland Council could be forced to double it's spending cuts for 2016/17 if local government grants are reduced.
The local authority had expected to slah £21 million from it's buget, but could now be asked to increase their saving by as much as £41 million instead.
The news follows a meeting of the COSLA Leaders meeting last Friday.
Leader of the Council, Cllr Margaret Davidson said: “As we feared, the news of the Local Government Settlement appears to be extremely bad. I would emphasise that this is not the final position that the Scottish Government is considering, but based on indications, the cut in our grants will be even more severe than we anticipated. This would translate into a devastating cut to our budget with a corresponding impact on our services.
“Together with COSLA we will be making representations to the Scottish Government, and we will now have to wait until at least the 16 December before we know the final outcome.
“This reduction is significantly worse than we had assumed. Proposals have already been drawn up for 6% savings across services and clearly we will be considering the potential implications of further service cuts and staff reductions.”