The City of Edinburgh Council published its draft budget a few months back, and the consultation on its terms finishes at close of business on Friday 19 December.
You can still have your say and Finance Convener Alasdair Rankin was anxious to explain that whatever you do say will be listened to. He said: “A lot of people have responded to the Budget Planner where they can try to produce a balanced budget but they have also emailed or written to us with their ideas.
“We have in previous years taken advantage of that feedback. For example in the case of library hours being cut back or support for kinship carers, we did listen. We were not able to completely remove any effect on these areas in the budget last year but we were able to minimise it.
“But the key administration commitment is to make the council a more efficient operation and protect frontline services.”
The council decided only last week to proceed with sweeping changes in the way the council is run which will mean some voluntary redundancies will be sought in middle management. The council has a no compulsory redundancy policy so they cannot demand jobs to be cut, but the new way of working will divide the city into four localities which will have local managers.
If you visit the council website then you still have time to add your voice to the other 1600 people who have used the budget planner looking across all areas of council spending and trying to work out where savings can be made.
The council differentiates between the budget and cuts to spending. There are those in the city who believe that the council is about to cut Edinburgh Leisure facilities across the city which the council have said is untrue.
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