Highland Council budget: millions set to be spent on communities, employment, roads, and visitor management and no Council Tax hike as the local authority strives to deal with the fallout from the pandemic
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HIGHLAND Council is planning to invest millions of pounds in communities, roads and tourist management, and freeze council tax bills for the next year.
The news has been revealed a week ahead of the local authority officially unveiling its budget for the next 12 months.
The Courier reported on Tuesday that the council expected to have a financial surplus of £3.1 million but according to new calculations, the figure is thought to be closer to £10 million – a far cry from the grim prediction last year that it was facing a £97 million deficit.
While it still has to make savings of £20.3 million between 2022 and 2024, the council leadership believes it is now in as good a position as could be expected in the face of the challenges thrown up by Covid and lockdown.
The administration’s budget sets out three main strands – a Health and Prosperity Strategy; a Recovery, Improvement and Transformation Fund; and cuts to balance the books.
The plans look certain to pass, with the independent-led administration confident the SNP group will give them its blessing.
The council’s deputy leader, Councillor Alasdair Christie, said: “The budget will be moved by myself and seconded by the SNP – it is a fantastic piece of collaboration for the benefit of the Highlands.
“It is a good budget that invests in the economy – £6 million that will secure jobs, create jobs and nurture people into jobs, providing retraining for people who have been unfortunate enough to have lost theirs.
“We have got visitor management policies coming in – £1.5 million to make sure we don’t have the chaos and destruction that we saw with tourists last year and that we actually meet the demands.”
After some communities said they were unable to cope with an influx of tourists from across the UK who travelled north for summer breaks last year, 10 seasonal rangers will be hired to tackle problem camping, dangerous parking and littering.
The council is also considering creating a network of 40 to 50 temporary sites for campervans while a more permanent solution is found, and there will be more investment in public toilets and the emptying of bins.
Last year the council agreed to spend more than £20 million of extra cash on roads.
After delays to works caused by lockdown, that investment should be rolled out in the coming months, and a review will look at whether renewable energy firms can be charged for contributions towards the upkeep of routes they use.
Further devolution of funds to local communities is also planned, with a £2.1 million pot of cash to include £882,000 for Inverness and £126,000 for Nairn in a bid to provide “local solutions for local problems”.
Other interventions planned include efforts to help people out of work into Modern Apprenticeships, incentives for businesses to provide jobs for people with disabilities and grants and loans to help local start-ups.
The budget also includes a number of “spend to save” schemes, where the council hopes upfront investment in new ways of working will reap longer-term benefits.
The council is set to shed the equivalent of around 47 full-time posts, though it says none of these are expected to come through redundancies, with most long-term vacant posts or able to be dealt with through redeployment.
However, Conservative group leader Andrew Jarvie labelled the budget a “giant missed opportunity”.
“We are not seeing the big redesigns and new ways of working which have been talked about,” he said.
Identifying £3.5 million of cuts to education, he added: “It is completely inexcusable for education to be repeatedly targeted – £2.9 million of head teachers’ budgets were taken away in June.
“It’s morally bankrupt.”
