02/03/2023

Published Barrhead News On Line

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East Renfrewshire budget: Cuts to school support staff
49 mins ago

By Drew Sandelands
Local Democracy Reporter

Cuts to the number of support staff at East Renfrewshire's schools are on the way as council chiefs try to plug a multi-million pound budget black hole.

The move is among a number of money-saving measures agreed by East Renfrewshire Council at its budget meeting yesterday.

Council leader Owen O’Donnell pledged there will be no compulsory redundancies as a result of the 2023/24 budget, adding that fewer than 50 jobs would be lost across the local authority.

However, savings totalling £4.1million will be made to help balance the books, with a voluntary redundancy programme for school librarians, bilingual assistants and technicians put in place.

Cuts will also be made in janitorial, catering and cleaning services within schools, while winter maintenance, roads management and street light replacement budgets will be slashed to save more than £500,000.

There will be further financial pain for East Renfrewshire residents in the form of a 6% rise in council tax.

This means a Band D household will pay £1,415 in 2023/24 – an annual increase of £80.

A large chunk of the £18m budget gap will be covered by the ‘reprofiling’ of PFI payments – deals which saw private sector investment in public projects, including schools and roads.

These costs will now be spread over 50 years, rather than 25.

This approach will see the council use £7.5m of a “one-off benefit” of almost £15m this year, as well as a £2.7m recurring saving, reducing the shortfall by around £10m.

East Renfrewshire’s SNP group put forward their own budget plans, which would have kept the council tax rise to 5.5%, used almost £11m of the reserves available due to the PFI changes and reduced the amount of savings to just over £3m.

It also planned to use £943,000 to “step back” from some of the worst cuts due to “leeway” provided by East Renfrewshire’s share of the Scottish Government’s recent announcement of an extra £100m for councils.

However, Councillor O’Donnell said this money was “ring-fenced” for “pay awards.”

The SNP amendment, supported by independent councillor David Macdonald, was voted down by 11 votes to seven, with the Conservatives backing Labour’s proposals.

Councillors agreed to invest £60,000 in a fund to support pupils with additional support needs (ASN) at Carlibar Communication Centre, in Barrhead, Isobel Mair School, in Newton Mearns, and ASN units at Williamwood and Carolside.

Officials had set out £4.7m of savings which could be made but the minority Labour administration, which includes independent councillor Danny Devlin, chose not to slash the number of behaviour support assistants in secondary schools.

They also held back from removing funding for campus police officers.

Funds will be brought in through an increased garden waste collection charge, which will rise to £50 to collect an estimated extra £230,000.

Burial charges will also increase to bring in £50,000, while new electric vehicle charging fees are set to raise £52,000.

Councillor O’Donnell said outlining cuts as a result of an “unfair funding settlement” from the Scottish Government gave him “no pleasure whatsoever.”

He added that the council is facing “rising energy costs and high inflation” but received “barely any extra cash on a like-for-like basis from the Scottish Government to fund services.”

It has been awarded just over £233m for 2023/24 but Councillor O’Donnell said that, after ring-fenced funding for national initiatives and a bigger rates bill for council buildings are taken into account, this works out as just £800,000 more than last year.

He said the council tax rise will “reduce the level of cuts required.”

Councillor O’Donnell added: “We do not want to make these cuts but we must take these difficult decisions to meet the legal requirements to balance our books.”

He warned that, without more funding from the Scottish Government, “further severe cuts” will be needed in future.

The council leader also said capital investment will see a £3m per year road resurfacing programme increased to £3.5m and extended over another five years.

Plans also include a £1m expansion of Isobel Mair School and the opening of the new Neilston Learning Campus.

The SNP’s budget would have prevented cuts to school support staff and roads management.

Councillor Tony Buchanan, SNP group leader, said his party’s proposals were “costed” and “deliverable.”

“We listen to our residents but, crucially, we also deliver and have a track record of delivering for our residents over the last number of years,” he added.

Councillor Caroline Bamforth, also of the SNP, said council funding issues were due to “underfunding” by the UK Government and “high interest rates, mainly driven by the appalling mismanagement of the economy by the Tory Government.”

Councillor Gordon Wallace, of the Conservatives, said he had entered budget talks with “a mindset of responsible opposition.”

He added that the administration's plan “clearly shows the concerns we voiced have been listened to” and accused the SNP of “squandering one-off benefits” from the PFI reprofiling.

Councillor O’Donnell had said the Labour group chose to “spread the benefit over the following two years.”

In addition, councillors approved future savings of just over £2m for 2024/25 to allow preparatory work to begin.

07/03/2023

Published Barrhead News On Line

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East Renfrewshire: Council leader defend cuts to education
5 hrs ago


By Drew Sandelands
Local Democracy Reporter

East Renfrewshire council leader Owen O’Donnell has pledged to keep “a close eye” on the impact of cuts on schools, as the SNP criticised a plan to reduce support staff.

East Renfrewshire has gained a reputation for its education provision and the SNP claimed cuts to the department “will have an impact on the attainment gap”.

As part of £4.1m of savings agreed to plug a budget gap of around £18m, the minority Labour administration decided to reduce the number of school librarians, bilingual assistants and technicians through a voluntary redundancy programme.

The budget plan was supported by East Renfrewshire’s Conservative group.

Cllr Tony Buchanan, the SNP group leader, said: “Labour and the Tories have voted through unnecessary cuts to jobs and services.”

While Chris Lunday, SNP councillor for Barrhead, Liboside and Uplawmoor, said: “The school library service, along with all the other cuts to the education department, is incredibly important and ultimately will have an impact on the attainment gap.

“Labour and Tory councillors are continuing to play politics with people’s lives in this coalition of chaos.”

However, Cllr O’Donnell said his administration’s budget had tried to find a “fair balance” between a council tax rise and cuts to services.

He added the SNP had ignored the Scottish Government’s funding settlement for local government, which he said was “the crux of the issue all councils are facing”.

Cllr O’Donnell said a steeper council tax rise had been seriously considered to protect more services, but his group didn’t want to put an “excessive burden” on taxpayers.

The budget had protected “a lot of frontline services” in the education department, he said, including teacher numbers, campus police officers and behavioural pupil support assistants.

“We are determined to maintain our position,” he said, adding the length of the school week had also been protected.

He said the administration would have preferred not to make any cuts and will “keep a close eye on it” on the impact.

Funding had been provided for extra teachers in some primary schools, where learning had been impacted by covid, through a £4.4m cost of living support package, he added.

The SNP’s budget plans kept the council tax rise to 5.5%, rather than the 6% agreed by Labour and the Conservatives, and Cllr Buchanan said it would have “delivered less cuts to services, no compulsory redundancies and investment in our most vulnerable”.

It planned to use more reserves, available due to the ‘reprofiling’ of PFI payments, and extra money provided by the Scottish Government.

However, Cllr O’Donnell said the SNP plan had been “very short termist in approach”. “The reserves have to see us through the next three years.”

He said the Scottish Government was “specifically ring-fenced for council staff pay”. “They were just trying to go for headlines,” he claimed. “We have to manage with the resources we know we’ve got.”

The council leader said residents had indicated they were willing to pay “a little bit more” to protect services during budget consultation.

“The budget engagement process was very important to us,” he said. “It gave us a real pulse of where our residents were and what was important to them.”

08/03/2023

Published Barrhead News On Line

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Decision to spread cost of PFI debt ‘not good policy’
6 hrs ago

By Drew Sandelands
Local Democracy Reporter

A decision by East Renfrewshire Council to spread the cost of PFI debt over half a century, rather than the initial 25 years, isn’t “good policy,” a Conservative councillor has claimed – warning it will end up costing the taxpayer more money.

The ‘reprofiling’ of PFI [Private Finance Initiative] payments - deals which saw a private sector investment in public services such as schools and roads - helped the council plug a funding shortfall of around £18million.

A large chunk of the budget gap was covered by the use of the fiscal flexibility, allowed by the Scottish Government, with the council using £7.5m of a “one-off benefit” of £14.8m this year.

Councillors also agreed to use a £2.7m recurring saving, meaning the method helped to reduce the budget black hole by £10.2m.

Council leader Owen O’Donnell said the move is “very sensible” and he is “very comfortable” with the decision.

However, Councillor Gordon Wallace, of the Conservatives, said that, while the council had no option but to use the flexibility, it would be “ultimately more expensive.”

Speaking at the council’s budget meeting last week, he added: “It’s like a homeowner taking a 25-year mortgage and then saying ‘I can’t afford it, I’ll make it 50 years.’ "The reality is we are going to be paying for something over a longer period of time and could well find ourselves paying for assets which are beyond their useful life.”

He added: “The money is not there, so the Scottish Government is having to find mechanisms which allows councils like ourselves to spread our costs over a much longer period of time.

“I don’t believe it’s good policy but, unfortunately, it’s a policy we are having to follow. I don’t think we’ve got any other option.

"This is not new money, this is just borrowed money over a longer period of time which will ultimately be more expensive.”

Councillor O’Donnell, who has an accountancy background, said that, when “you are looking at assets, you build - you spread the costs over the expected life.”

He added there are “very strong maintenance contracts” included in the deals.

At the budget meeting, Councillor O’Donnell said the plan delivered “really welcome relief” and thanked council officials for their work.

Margaret McCrossan, the council’s chief financial officer, said she understood the concerns raised by Councillor Wallace but stressed that the council is “limiting ourselves to the period over which we spread the debt liability for each asset.”

“The absolute maximum would be the asset life that is determined by our professional valuers,” she said. “They follow a professional code and see what the life of any building is expected to be.

“If we were building a school of our own, we would expect that to last 50 years. These PFI concessions are paid for at the moment in a contract over 25 years and they are well maintained, as they have to be as part of the contract.”

She added: “We are absolutely certain that we would expect them to last another 25 years and that it is appropriate therefore to share the debt cost over the full life of the asset.

“We are not doing anything different for the asset life for those schools than we would do for a school we built ourselves.”