Budget day dawns in the capital

February 21, 2019 8:13 am

The SNP-Labour coalition released their revised plans for next year’s spending yesterday afternoon along with the Conservatives, the Green Group and the LibDems who have all now had their say on the finance options for the next year.

Their plans are reproduced below but here is a brief outline of some of the headline catching proposals.

In a slight u-turn the coalition have decided to reinstate some of the funding for Marketing Edinburgh (£0.267m), but have asked that the body responsible for promoting the city works out how to get to a position where they no longer need any funding from the City Chambers.

The LibDems agree a 3% increase in council tax, want to introduce a police of compulsory redundancies for council staff, but blame the current and previous council administrations for past decisions which have ‘exacerbated current financial pressures’. They also say that the Scottish Government’s block grant to the city has meant funding cuts in the past – and will lead to more in the future.

On a positive note they say that they want to invest a total of £6.3 million in services. They plan to :

spend £4 million on roads and pavements
set up an Environment Fund for Schools of £1 million so that the cuts to nursery teachers and headteachers can be reversed and more funding made available to schools for promoting integration and minimising disruption
abolish the garden tax and improve waste collection by arranging what they call ‘external service provision’ apparently saving £1.125 million
reject the proposed cut of £0.350 million to Edinburgh Leisure and increase their funding with a Physical Activity Strategy
reverse the proposed cut of £0.522 million for community policing

The Conservative Group say the administration has failed to deliver basic services, in particular the ‘shambolic’ roll out of the garden tax and new waste collection service, ‘abject’ failure in relation to the health and social care crisis, the ‘illogical obsession’ with the extension of the tramline to Newhaven while roads and pavements continue to crumble.

One particularly damning paragraph says : “Concludes that the current SNP/Labour administration is failing to deliver value for money to the citizens of Edinburgh for their Council Tax, does not have a sustainable grasp on the financial management of the city, and wastes valuable time fighting amongst itself.”

The Tories want to

limit the council tax increase to 2%
remove the £25 per annum garden waste tax for those with brown bins
allocate an additional £3 million to Edinburgh Integration Joint Board
rejects the proposed cut of £567,000 to Marketing Edinburgh
wants to establish a Sports Fund with £100,000
wants to ban the introduction of Sunday parking charges and also a limit on the amount of any increase
and wants to spend £50,000 on a road mole

And the Greens have set their priorities out as Climate Emergency saying that they would back the creation of a Climate Emergency fund of £2.875m over the 4-year period of the budget in order to implement ECCI recommendations.

“The fund will enable bold but necessary changes such as removing the need for petrol/diesel vehicles in the city by 2030 through the City Mobility Plan, and developing a buildings strategy that ensures local communities are energy positive by 2030.”

They advocate spending more on trees and secure on street cycle parking and would fully fund the EIJB with £10 million and tackle homelessness with a £1.5 million investment in early intervention.

Watch out for the drama from the City Chambers unfolding from 10.00am. You can watch online here.