East Ayrshire residents face eight per cent council tax hike
Elected members look to close near £9m shortfall
East Ayrshire residents face a council tax hike of eight per cent when councillors meet this week to discuss the budget for the year ahead.
Cuts to services and staff and increased service charges will be debated as elected members attempt to bridge a budget gap of £8.75 million.
That will be split between cuts of £5.36m to council services, with a further £3.26m passed on to East Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership and £120,000 to East Ayrshire Leisure Trust.
The proposals include a reduction in school crossing patrollers to those routes that meet the minimum criteria, funding cuts for campus cops, the introduction of car parking fees across East Ayrshire, the closure of public toilets in Kilmarnock and Mauchline.
If approved, there would also be increases to charges for adult burials, school meals, special uplifts and community day care among others.
Chief finance officer Joe McLachlan has regularly warned of the unprecedented financial pressure on the council and the difficult decisions required.
In his report, submitted to councillors ahead of Thursday’s meeting, he points to the UK Government’s recent decision to increase the National Insurance contribution from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent as having a detrimental impact.
He said: “The impact of the increase is significant for the council both in terms of the cost for our employees and for the future cost implications arising from externally commissioned services that will see substantial increases to their staff costs from April 1, 2025.”
He said that the indications from the UK Government had been that they would be fully covered for the increase.
He continued: “The UK Government subsequently announced that compensation for the public sector within the devolved nations will be based on their relative size to the English public sector.
“However, the Scottish public sector is relatively larger than the English public sector meaning that there was a risk that the compensation quantum would be insufficient to cover the full cost.”
There are also a number of proposals for job cuts, from the deletion of posts, service reviews and non-filling of vacancies.
The recommendations are that cutting temporary school staff will save £270,000 and taking away Streetscene staffing will save £130,000.
Burial charges for adults are to go up by 36 per cent, with charges for day care to rise by 10 per cent.
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