SCOTLAND’S councils have “no excuse” for failing to deliver services after recording an overall revenue surplus of almost £70 million, an MSP claims.
The SNP’s Kevin Stewart spoke out yesterday after official statistics show local authorities reported a revenue surplus of £69.4 million for 2014-15 – one year after being £54.8m in deficit. Total revenue reserves were at £1.879 billion on March 31 last year, up almost four per cent, while spending on services increased by one per cent to £10.5bn.
The news comes just days after the Scottish Government passed its latest budget. Finance Secretary John Swinney said the figures reveal councils have been treated “very fairly”, despite calls for an end to the council tax freeze.
However, council body Cosla said the numbers “hide the true story” of frontline cuts and the latest deal has put 15,000 jobs at risk.
Yesterday the MSP for Aberdeen Central called on local authorities to deliver, saying: “Despite claims from opposition parties, Scotland’s councils have consistently received a fair deal from the Scottish Government – and are sitting on more than enough cash to ensure the public’ s priorities are delivered. In light of these new figures, senior Labour figures such as Kezia Dugdale and Jackie Baillie may wish to withdraw their previous erroneous claims on local government funding.
“The budget settlement provided by the Scottish Government will give councils the funding to protect jobs and services, guarantee the Living Wage to care workers and to support the biggest reform in our health service since 1948 by integrating health and social care.
“Today’s figures make absolutely clear that our local authorities are more than equipped to deliver on these policies. People across Scotland have every right to expect their local authorities to deliver – and these new figures show that there are simply no excuses for councils to fail to do so.”
The comments came as Dumfries and Galloway Council set its budget, which includes plans to cut 250 full-time jobs as part of a £21m savings plan. Four budgets had been tabled from opposing political groups and a pack of cards was used as part of the voting process for the first time because of a stalemate between plans proposed by the SNP and the independent group.
Council leader Ronnie Nicholson said it was a “difficult and sad day” for the area. Swinney said he had delivered a financial settlement to help councils “pursue shared priorities” and “improve outcomes for local people”. However, Cosla said: “These are high level figures which hide the true story of what is happening on the ground. The fact is that the considerable majority of these reserves will already be committed by councils for specific and planned areas of local spend such as service transformation, creating capacity and responding to severe weather to name but a few. It is therefore simply wrong to think of this money as being a surplus sitting in a bank account. It must also be highlighted that these figures show the position for 2014/15 and so are already out of date and do not reflect the real financial situation faced by councils today.”
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