For some people, the budget crisis at Aberdeen City Council has been an opportunity to exercise in a healthy dose of schadenfreude.
Us pesky young councillors, clearly not capable of doing a decent job, SNP proving heartless and uncaring towards children, disabled, the elderly, add any other section of society you care to mention.
Did I enter politics to make savings, close schools, rationalise facilities and make decisions which prove decidedly unpopular?
No, of course not.
The simple fact is, however, that expenditure was never really brought under control and was allowed to simply go unchecked at any stage.
The figures which were published the other day, showing a £200million overspend on education and social work since the authority's inception, demonstrates that these budgets were never reined in.
The P & J editorial talks about money being taken from other services to plug the gap and thus "protect" these two services. Well, there comes a point when you simply can't keep on doing that, and we reached and breached that point some time ago.
So, we arrived into power in 2007, and landed up in a position where we had to take drastic action in order to try and balance the books.
The budget process at the Council was ridiculously hectic, and led to a number of savings being put forward which were undeliverable in the timeframe required.
As a result we are looking at a further £25 million of savings being needed next year. This is not pleasant, it is not comforting, but if we want to try and get the Council back on an even keel it is necessary.
We are currently going through the most open and transparent budget process in the Council's history, and there is ample opportunity for people to put forward suggestions for alternatives to any savings that they do not like.
I don't dispute that there are people out there who are angry about the way things have developed, I'm not exactly tickled pink either, but to insinuate that we could simply avoid taking these sorts of decisions and keep on spending beyond our means is, frankly, unrealistic.
Hopefully this next budget round will set the Council back onto an even keel, and we can start trying to focus on some of the positive things that are happening.
Like winning a UK-wide award for housing, or successfully lobbying for a reduction in bus fares for example...
0 comments:
Post a Comment