Schools and care to benefit in £26m council spree
Boroughmuir will be one of many schools to benefit
Crumbling schools across the city are to benefit from a £4 million programme of repairs to tackle a growing backlog as part of a massive one-off council spending spree unveiled today.
The Evening News can reveal a list of 24 different plans across all areas of the city that will benefit from a share of the surprise £26m cash windfall contained within this year’s budget, due to be finalised tomorrow.
Schools will be among the main beneficiaries, with every primary and secondary in the city, apart from public private partnership schools, set to benefit from urgent upgrades as £4.1m is ploughed into decaying buildings, while headteachers will also share an extra £250,000 in their devolved school budgets, to be spent on everything from sports equipment to stationery.
Other new spending plans include extra funding to support vulnerable people who stay in their own home instead of going into care, upgrades to care homes, improvements to sports pitches and pavilions across the city and £3m of extra road repairs.
The populist package of measures is likely to be viewed by some as an election ploy by the Liberal Democrat/SNP administration ahead of the city going to the polls in May, with council officials having already warned that the next administration will have to impose tens of millions of pounds of cuts in the early years of coming into power. Councillor Phil Wheeler, the city’s finance leader, said that the school repairs were a “spend to save” proposal that would help the next council administration.
He said: “If we do up schools now this should not be required in the future.”
The investment in schools comes after a series of controversial cuts to school budgets and management costs in recent years.
The extra cash will clear just over half of the £7m backlog of maintenance work in schools that has built up through years of underinvestment. Full details of how the money is to be spent are still to be finalised but funding already agreed ranges from £210,000 for Liberton High School, a large older secondary which has a considerable backlog, to £3500 for Niddrie Mill and St Francis Primary, as the building is only a few years old.
Healthcare improvements range from £500,000 of upgrades to care homes, £400,000 towards new carers and a £350,000 fund to buy in extra equipment, to giving every council care home £1500 each to use towards social events for their residents – after SNP councillor Mike Bridgman discovered some staff in care homes were contributing some of their wages towards such events.
Pitches, playgrounds, pavilions and allotments will share £725,000 to improve and expand facilities.
SNP leader Steve Cardownie, the deputy council leader, said: “In this day and age, some facilities are just not acceptable and we need a proper programme, good maintenance of pitches, good drainage and also proper dressing rooms.”
Edinburgh Leisure, which has been the subject of annual cuts that have forced it to close some facilities, will also be handed an extra £890,000.
The extra spending is mainly funded by the £20m surplus the council had in its budget, which came about as a result of the Scottish Government honouring a manifesto pledge to ensure that no council’s funding should fall below 85 per cent of the Scottish average per head of population, effectively handing the city an extra £22m for 2012-13. An extra £5.9m has been raised by raiding a series of “assigned reserves” that were no longer needed.
Council leader Jenny Dawe, below, said: “We are in a slightly different position to previous years. This administration has shown prudent financial management of resources and is likely to come in, yet again, on or under budget.
“Because we have benefited from the Scottish Government decision that has made this budget considerably easier. Had we not got that money, we would have been in a very difficult position.
“We are still making efficiency savings in this budget and it is still important that we work as efficiently as we can so that we have still made savings in the way we structure ourselves, but we are in the very unusual position to build on the fact that we built up reserves to more than £13m, from only £373,000 when we took office.
“We are in the position where we can invest more money in many of the services that we as an administration give priority to and that, over our budget consultation process, residents have told us is a priority for them.”
Some cuts that were on the way – including a two per cent reduction in grants to festivals and cultural venues, the closure of up to half of public toilets and some reductions in library opening hours – have been reversed.
A series of other cuts totalling £5.2m will be imposed, including axing the A-to-Z of council services that is sent to every household and raising the price of a range of council services.
£18.1m of cuts were already approved last February but will not come into effect until the next 12 months, including another £1.4m reduction in secondary school management costs and the introduction of fortnightly bin collections.
The £26m of new spending also includes £11m towards improving the “in-house” services that councillors agreed to protect last month, instead of outsourcing to private firms.
mblackley@edinburghnews.com
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Comments
There are 42 comments to this article
Page 1 of 3
Top Floor
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 12:56 PM#38 Intervention - you forgot the Council's SNP Group, they voted to sign the tram contract too.
Bourneville
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 10:32 AMOut of curiosity, I wonder if the EIS are still moaning about the £2m being spent on sorting the roads...
duelaynomore
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 02:28 AMBefore we rush off to spend our "ASSIGNED RESERVES" can someone tell me what the overall budget situation is? Does the city run at a surplus or a loss? What borrowings are outstanding at this time and how much does it cost to service, as a percentage of annual income........................................................If I choose to spend 1000 pounds on feel good stuff, when I have to repay 5000 a year in interest payments on my loans, am I going forward or backwards as an economic entity?................................I hope the arithmetic lessons of form 4B still make sense to the city's accountant.
Incandescent
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 12:08 AM#38 intervention. You are either an incumbent, party activist, or have an extremely low IQ. Which is it?
Intervention
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 07:10 PMRemind who voted for the Trams in 2007 when the City already had a budget deficit....................... ah yes it was the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens..................................................................................................................... That plus budget cuts from Westminster due to the miusmagement of the UK economy are the main reasons the City Council has a long term financial problem that will have to be carefully managed...........
Snoopy1
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 06:44 PMRugal #31 I think you are correct,about the tram lines cracking up, but that is just the tip of the iceberg ,and that is without a single tram being driven over them,and that is not the only thing that has become cracked and become worped in the city of Edinburgh,just take the present SNP-LibDem coalition council,if that is not cracked and warped then what do we class as strait and true?,as you stated there may be trouble ahead.
Thomas the Tank
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 06:04 PM#17 - in answer to your question; YES, totally. My question is "why is the Chip-Wrapper illustrating this story with a photie of Sir Les Paterson, Australian Cultural Attaché to the Court of St James"? While the other photie reminds us that Princes Street will be shut for up to a year as a result of Jenny, Phil and Gordon's administrative incompetence and mismanagement of the TramShambles.
Piltdown man
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 04:57 PMIt is a shame that the largest part of this spending spree (£11 million) is being spent on helping to protect in house services instead of more important things. So much for the promises that these services would be improved and made more cost effective.
Jingsitsme
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 04:48 PMI don't believe for one minute we will see visible improvements. All hype as they will syphon off the money - if any! - to themselves via expenses etc, to contractors who are 'nice' to councillors rather than who do a good job of work and an affordable cost within a set timescale. We need a total clearout of all councillors to see any change taking place. At present they can neither facilitate nor manage anything with little or no accountability. Open the drain as Edinburgh is almost in a state of going down it! Don't be conned folks!
searchanddestroy
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 03:21 PM"A series of other cuts totalling £5.2m will be imposed, including axing the A-to-Z of council services that is sent to every household and raising the price of a range of council services. .........................Since when was raising the cost of stuff a cut ??????? If CEC have any money left rather that splashing it all in the public sectors "Mad March" why not pay off some of the tram debts ?
Aristotle
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 03:14 PM#24 - Intervention -------------------------------------- I hope that you are the only gulible fool in Edinburgh to believe the nonsense spouted by Dawe and Co - it is a bribe pure and simple. Anyone believing otherwise has an IQ well below double figures and should not be eligible to vote.
Rugal
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 02:59 PMIf it looks like an election bribe it probably is an election bribe........They must think we button up the back. I saw something very worrying today, the brand new track foundations and tarmac is already cracking up near Scott Monument, as the song goes, there may be trouble ahead....
keyser soze
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 02:55 PMIf the voter in this city does not show far more interest and knowledge whilst choosing there next councillors, then this city is finished. It is time for even the most apathetic ,to waken up to what has gone on in this city for the last 25 years. Some will always argue the political party debate. However, no one can argue that Labour, SNP and the Lib Dems, have destroyed large swaths of the city. The maintainance of the city and waste of public money,our money, over that period has been shocking and each of those parties are responsible to varying degrees. There has been an ever increasing attitude of untouchability by both councillors and council officials ,to the point they feel they can do as little as possible with no consequences. That must change this May, when each of these parties are kicked out for years to come.. There will be plenty of other candidates to choose from, so do not vote for any sitting party.
Jams
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 02:41 PMAh the sweet smell of rampant vote gathering. ......Why did they not just send everyone of voting age a £10 voucher - redeemable only if they got re-elected. It might look more like bribery, but at least it would be honest bribery. .............................................. Over all, I feel a bit like the native americans, JD&co have spent the last few years pillaging the city, and now they want to buy us with a handful of beads.
SarahB
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 02:39 PMIntervention (21) - Today's Opinion piece says, "... while efficiency savings and extra money from the Scottish Government mean this extra cash is available for the next financial year, large savings will be needed to meet deficits in the following two years." In other words, if the Scottish Government hadn't given the Council the extra cash this year, it would not have the money available to fulfil its statutory obligations. Meanwhile, what it has done is to increase the city's borrowing by £1 billion, bringing the total to just shy of £1.5 billion which requires a whopping 11% of its dwindling budget to be spent on servicing debt. That will obviously rise further as we get the final bill for the dreadfully managed tram project. You may call that "good housekeeping" but I would call it the fast track to bankruptcy.
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