Highland Council budget black hole of £80m branded 'ludicrous' by Inverness councillor
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Highland Council's forecast budget black hole of £80 million has been branded "ludicrous".
Inverness South councillor Andrew Jarvie, leader of the council' Tory group, slammed the predicted impact of the coronavirus on the local authority's figures for the current financial year.
Just two months ago, the council agreed a budget to tackle a financial gap of £20.5 million.
That has now increased almost four-fold.
All councillors were briefed on the latest situation yesterday, a week after the local authority leadership revealed it would have to redo its entire budget.
Budget leader Alister Mackinnon said losses and new cost pressures contributed to the situation.
But Cllr Jarvie was sceptical.
"It is ludicrous and impossible, I don't know how this number has been arrived at," he said.
"All we were shown in the members briefing were half-a-dozen bullet points, only two of which were actual numbers and all the rest were percentages which doesn't tell us what the base starting point was.
"I won't accept figures being given to us just because it is what politically looks worse.
"What I care about are balance sheets, and what wasn't mentioned at all are the incidental savings from coronavirus, which is unfortunate but it is a real thing, I wouldn't like to but we need to start talking about it. There are huge savings in energy from 200 schools being closed, in not paying out milage to anyone because everyone is working from home, and there are millions of savings in capital projects that will not go ahead this year and money that won't be borrowed.
"The BBC has a budget shortfall of £125 million and they have a budget 10 times that of the council – things are not adding up and there are serious questions."
Related article: Highland Council forecasting £80 million budget black hole due to the impact of lost revenue from Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown
