Budget proposal from Labour gets zero marks from the SNP

Last week the Labour group successfully challenged the SNP administration’s spending proposals, putting forward budget amendments they said would protect jobs and services.

The Labour budget pledged to spend £7 million to repair the district’s roads and reject the SNP’s suggestion that this simply can’t be done in the timescale without affecting other work planned for this year.

Likewise, Labour has pledged to bring back the bedding plants that were axed in last year’s budget, saying they were vital to encourage a sense of wellbeing.

The SNP say that many communities have already raised funds to provide bedding and claim the many volunteers will be ‘disenfranchised’ by the return to a service provided by the council.

Whatever happens, this year, the bedding cannot be grown in the Kinneil nursery and polytunnels which are now closed and needing repairs – and it may be that communities are still called on to help plant the flowers.

Labour group leader Robert Bissett said they were looking at how best to deliver the promise: “We will go out to procurement to get the flowers then we will get a hierarchy, looking at cemeteries, war memorials and roundabouts first and then cascading down.”

Labour also committed the council to investigate using a different way to find savings in services as the council steadies itself for cuts of £76 million and job losses of over 300 in the next five years.

They believe using zero based budgets will help them really understand where the council’s money is going.

Mr Bissett said: “We know we face massive financial cuts in the coming years. Until now we have dealt with this by asking officers where we can save money, a job that is becoming almost impossible given the depth of the cuts we’ve experienced.

“This change means that instead we will be looking in depth at the things we need to provide and how we provide them through zero based budgeting, it’s a more efficient way to look at budgets and produces better services.

“More importantly, it lets the elected members involved in the process know what everyone is doing, which can be difficult at present given our sprawling services.

“Once a line is set we then have a handle on not just what each department wants, but what it really needs. In effect it’s shining a light on all council activities and asking, do we need them to provide a service?”

He added that the system was not designed to target jobs but was a way of freeing up revenue.

Officers have been asked to come up with a process for introducing zero based budgeting for the council meeting in May, with the agreed process put before a budget working group after the summer recess.

Cecil Meiklejohn, leader of Falkirk Council, says zero-based budgeting is extremely difficult to achieve in local government.

She said: “I understand that it does not work well in the public sector because so many areas are demand-led. There would have to be a significant investment to set it up.

“The outcomes might not be effective for all services, for example health and social care and children’s services – it’s much more akin to the private sector where you’re dealing with commodities rather than people.

“You could be creating a whole new bureaucracy and not delivering the services most valuable to our people.”

The minority SNP administration has also expressed concern over the detail of the alternative budget.

Mrs Meiklejohn said: “It is glaringly obvious that the Labour/Tory budget is devoid of any real forward planning, running the risk of significant cost in the coming years, increasing the need for further and deeper cuts to vital services.

“Our budgets are crucial for the wellbeing of our people, and deserve to be treated seriously. Playing fast and loose with people’s lives is something the SNP would never take part in.

“We will seek to amend the council’s budget through out the year to safe guard our most vulnerable citizens, not just for today but in the future.”