Consultation period extended until 17 December
New proposals to help save the Council money over the next four years have been published for public comment. Edinburgh’s citizens can submit their views on measures, which add to a series of existing proposals on how the Council is to make an annual saving of at least £126m by 2020.
There will now also be an extra week for feedback, with the engagement period now running until 17 December.
In September, the Finance and Resources Committee approved the 2016-20 revenue and capital budget framework, highlighting that further budget proposals were to be developed to outline savings through the Transformation Programme.
New proposals will form part of the budget engagement process, which allows the public to have their say on recommendations for reducing Council spending, and will be noted by Finance and Resources Committee on 26 November.
Finance Convener, Councillor Alastair Rankin, said: “These new proposals have been developed since September and will allow us to make significant savings through the Transformation Programme.
“We really want to hear what you think of these proposals, and how you want us to invest and save generally, so that’s why we’ve added an extra week to the engagement process to allow people to give us their feedback. We will listen to people’s views before the Council makes the final budget decisions, as we did last year.
“We’ll also be holding a live webcast Budget Question Time event on Monday where people can put their budget questions to us directly, either in person or via email or Twitter, so I would encourage the public to join in.”
Additional proposals could deliver recurring annual savings to a total value of £69.2m by 2019/20 and will be integrated into the Transformation Programme, which aims to transform the Council’s structure and change the way it delivers services.
Proposals will affect a range of services including waste collections, parking charges, library provision and parks.
There are a variety of ways in which members of the public can give their views on how the Council saves and spends money, increases income and delivers services in the future, such as an interactive online budget planner and the Your City, Your Say dialogue web page.
The Budget Question Time event will let people put questions directly to a panel of senior councillors on the Council’s budget proposals for next year and beyond.
This will take place at 7.15pm on Monday (23 November) and will be webcast live on the Council’s website.
Details for commenting on budget proposals are:
- Freepost RSJC-SLXC-YTJY, Budget, Council Leader, City Chambers, Edinburgh, EH1 1YJ
- Email: councilbudget@edinburgh.gov.uk
- Tel: 0131 200 2305
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