Edinburgh College guarantees a place to local school leavers
Edinburgh College is guaranteeing a place to study to all school students in Edinburgh, East Lothian and Midlothian, to make sure they can achieve their education and career ambitions. The college is promising to help every eligible school student who applies find a course for 2016/17 at the right level in the right area. Continue reading A place for all at Edinburgh College
Dear Editor
The freeze on Council Tax by the Tory government was seen by many as a good move to help people; many others said look into the why and the consequences of that action.
The average saving brought about by the freeze was around 50p per week; the shortfall in council income would be made up – but not fully – by a government grant. This money could only be spent on issues approved by the government, with councils having no control, and that is why many people raised the questions ‘why?’ and ‘what consequences would there be?’
Government policy is to cut public services and controlling their finances: the council tax freeze was a step in that direction.
It now seems, at last, that councils are beginning to understand the government’s intention to break local services, decision-making and control.
Councils everywhere will have to pressure the Scottish Parliament to end the council tax freeze and work towards the abolition of the council tax itself, introducing a new fairer tax. In the meantime we have to make sure councils do not attempt to impose large increases but to look at other ways of easing the burden on their communities, for example:
A Tourist Tax, as in other countries
Private schools to pay tax on their income by abolishing their status as charities
Loan deals made by the Council to be renegotiated
These ideas among other things
A.Delahoy
Silverknowes Gardens
Saturday 30 January 2 – 9pm
Madelvic House
THURSDAY 26 JANUARY 6.30 – 8.30pm
tickets on sale today!
Councillors vote through £84.5 cuts package
Frontline services for Edinburgh’s vulnerable, older and younger residents will be prioritised in the city council’s budget budget set yesterday. Finance convener Alisdair Rankin says the council aims to become a ‘leaner, more agile organisation’ but up to two thousand jobs will go, impacting on services across the city.
The council says spending on schools, health and social care provision – seen as the services that matter most to Edinburgh residents – as well as improvements to roads, pavements and cycle routes, will be their spending priorities, and the administration plans to deliver them more efficiently and effectively.
Councillor Alasdair Rankin, Convener of the Finance and Resources Committee, said: “Like other local authorities around the country, we face the challenge of a rising demand for services while funding is reducing.
“That’s why we will focus on the services that matter the most to the public. I am confident that we have taken the needs of Edinburgh’s residents into account when setting this year’s budget and am delighted that more than 4000 people took the time to have their say on our draft budget proposals.”
Councillor Bill Cook, Vice-Convener of the Finance and Resources Committee, said: “Thanks to the feedback gained during the budget engagement process we have been able to make decisions such as maintaining the full in-house home care service and retaining lunch time crossing patrols at primary schools.”
Based on responses received during an 11-week consultation period, changes were made to the final budget reflecting the public’s needs. These include:
• Maintaining the night noise team
• Deciding against proposals to redesign day care services for adults with learning disabilities
• Removing the proposal to reduce community centre staff
• Maintaining lunch time school crossing patrols
• Amending the proposal to review support staff in special schools
This year the Council has a budget of £950m and will continue to deliver frontline services while making savings of £85.4m. These savings will be achieved through ‘workforce transformation’, cuts in fleet and selling off property.
While councillors listened to the public’s views during the budget consultation there was no move towards introducing a ‘Tourist Tax’ and they rejected appeals to defy the Scottish government by raising council tax. As a result, council tax band levels for Edinburgh in 2016/17 will once again remain unchanged:
A: £779.33
B: £909.22
C: £1,039.11
D: £1,169.00
E: £1,428.78
F: £1,688.56
G: £1,948.33
H: £2,338.00
A deputation from North Edinburgh was well to the fore during proceedings throughout the day, bringing some levity to what was otherwise a sombre occasion.
Dressed in black, Royston Wardieburn’s Power to the People adult education group staged a funeral procession to the City Chambers, led by the Grim Reaper, an undertaker, pall bearers and mourners lamenting the death of council services.
Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre is one of many voluntary sector organisations facing an uncertain future. A contingent from Drylaw joined the lobby and supporter Lesley Yardley (below, left) spoke to reporters before the meeting about how cuts are affecting hard-hit communities.
She said: “Our Neighbourhood Centre caters for people of all ages – from babies and toddlers right up to people in their nineties. The Centre’s full every day. Pensioners get picked up by our community bus and brought in to the centre. Without that Centre many of these people would be on their own; they would just sit at home and fade away. Communities need community centres.”
The deputation also brought music into the council chamber, with speakers Willie Black and Anna Hutchison – was there ever a more unlikely Renee and Renato? – leading the North Edinburgh chorus in a rousing – if melancholic – version of Bella Ciao.
Ultimately, however, the serenade failed to melt the heart of Edinburgh’s councillors and by late afternoon the die was cast: councillors voted through the Capital Coalition’s budget. Yes, these were some small victories but communities across the city will feel the impact of cuts of this scale. You can’t lose that many jobs without affecting services.
Yesterday’s visit by the Grim Reaper was premature and council services are not dead yet: but with three more years of cuts to come they are surely in a critical condition. Edinburgh’s heady days of ‘Improving Services, Creating Jobs’ are well and truly over.
You can find out more about where the Council plans to spend and save in 2016/17, and where changes have been made following Budget engagement, on the Council website.
More pictures below and on our Facebook page – our thanks to Lynn McCabe
North Edinburgh activists urge: reject the budget cuts!
North Edinburgh’s Power to the People adult education group is among the many deputations who will be urging councillors to think again at this morning’s budget meeting. This is what they plan to say: Continue reading Death by a thousand cuts
Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival 6 & 7 February
Why do people go to the mountains? You’ll find many different answers at the 13th Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival, which runs Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 February. Continue reading Expect the unexpected at Mountain Film Festival
Edinburgh North and Leith MP Deirdre Brock is calling upon constituents to sign a petition which seeks to scrap the UK Government’s rape clause. Continue reading Brock calls for support to scrap ‘appalling’ rape clause
Tenants & Residents in Muirhouse (TRIM) has issued the following notes of a community meeting which was held in the Millennium Centre yesterday: Continue reading Muirhouse meeting discusses community concerns
On the eve of Edinburgh’s crucial budget meeting, JIMMY BURNETT argues that the SNP government must end the Council Tax freeze – NOW
Local Government is in crisis. And it is a crisis for which councils bear little or no responsibility.
The Scottish Government has made successive cuts in support for local government, culminating in this year’s savage £550 million reduction. This coupled with the continuing imposition of the SNP-enforced nine year long council tax freeze, has forced local councils, like Edinburgh, into implementing cuts on a scale, never before envisaged.
And to make matters worse, the council tax freeze has seen the better off benefit by three times as much as people at the bottom of the scale – and of course the poorest section of society, who receive full or partial council tax relief, save not one penny.
In addition, as pointed out by Unison, councils, in dire need of alternative resources, have partially plugged the gap, by increasing service charges. Charges which of course, hit the lower paid harder, as the recent “ Close the Gap” report highlighted.
Since 2007, 40,000 jobs have gone in local authorities across Scotland.
Vulnerable and older peoples service have been particularly hit. 13,000 fewer people receive a Home Care Service than was the case a mere six years ago. Service charges for vulnerable people have risen by 11.5 million since 2010.
Here in Edinburgh, the Council is being forced to inflict almost £90 million cuts on crucial services. Yet they cannot even consider raising their council tax , without immediately receiving further cuts in resources from the Scottish Government.
Lets have a quick look at the figures. A council tax rise of 3% in Edinburgh would raise 7 million, a relatively small sum, but still enough to make some contribution to saving crucial services. This would cost Band A households 45p per week, Band D householders 67p per week and Band H householders – those in the highest valued houses – £1.35 per week.
Surely not too much to ask, when people are dying in Edinburgh while waiting for care packages to be provided?
But there is a catch. A 3% rise would in reality, unless the Scottish Government chose to lift their penalty system, would raise precisely nothing for services: the Scottish Government would immediately claw back £7 million from the council. So much for local democracy and accountability!
Since 2,007, the Scottish Government, have chosen to earmark a staggering £2.5 billion to finance the council tax freeze. This is public money. Money being spent on services , but only if councils agree to freeze their council tax. As a result councils across Scotland have been denied their democratic right to raise taxes locally and be accountable to the electorate for that rise.
So the council tax freeze is unfair. The better off have had savings three times the level of the less well off.
The council tax freeze has deprived councils of their democratic right to raise much needed resources for local services.
The Scottish Government-imposed council tax freeze is anti democratic, as it removes local accountability.
Even at this late stage, the Scottish Government, AT NO COST TO THEM WHATSOEVER, could choose to end this unfair freeze. And they could, and should, allow councils to raise their tax with no penalty clawback.
But they are unlikely to do so. And have said as much. This is an election year, and therefore, it appears, that because they believe the freeze to be popular, they are prepared to see services sacrificed, jobs lost and people suffer.
And the irony is that they appear to be able to do so, with virtually no criticism, whilst it is councils, who they are forcing to make cuts, who are bearing the brunt of the ire of the general public!
Jimmy Burnett was Housing and Finance Chair of Edinburgh District Council
