Fife budget: 3% Council Tax rise and more cash for road repairs

Fife’s SNP/Labour joint administration has confirmed that there will be no cuts proposed for 2022/23 with a £3.7 million surplus to be reinvested in areas identified as key priorities.

An extra £1.3 million will be allocated to roads maintenance, while an additional £750,000 will be spent on recruiting the equivalent of 20 full-time staff for the region’s parks, streets and open space service and providing new equipment.

The region’s seven area budgets will be boosted by £700,000, meaning £100,000 each towards local projects, and the popular Cafe Inc initiative - which provides food and activities over the school holidays for children and families - will receive an extra £150,000.

The impact of the pandemic has not been lost on the council either, so £300,000 has been earmarked to boost the summer programme of activities for children, young people, families and older people to go, in some small way, towards making up for lost opportunities.

A further £216,000 has been set aside for additional staffing for Fife Coast and Countryside Trust, and £250,000 will go towards community growing initiatives including the expansion of allotments.

Council co-leaders David Ross and David Alexander formally proposed the budget plans, which were voted through despite a Liberal Democrat amendment.

“In conclusion, this budget aims to support the recovery and maintain the high standard of local services in Fife,” they said in a joint statement.

“It recognises the financial pressures faced by the council and uses the small amount available for investment this year in a prudent manner designed to support some of those most affected by the pandemic.

“It sustains services for the coming year and provides a foundation for the new council to set out its medium and longer term priorities following the local government elections in May.”

The 3% rise in council tax means the band D level will rise to £1319.22, although the actual number on the bill will be higher due to water and sewerage charges.

Fife’s share of total revenue funding amounts to more than £760 million, which includes £52.9 million in specific grant funding for specific purposes - such as early learning and childcare and the Pupil Equity Fund.

Finance secretary Kate Forbes also announced a further £120 million of flexible non-recurring funding for councils in January, of which Fife will receive around £8.1 million.

The overall settlement for Fife includes an extra £14 million to support investment in health and social care, £12.2 million to deliver the real living wage within health and social care, £10.2 million for additional teachers and support staff, £8.5 million to provide care at home, £1.4 million to implement the Carers Act, £1.4 million to support interim care, and £1 million towards raising free personal and nursing care payments.

While the need to make cuts to services has been avoided this year, councillors were warned that the future picture looks bleak with a projected budget gap of £16.9m in 2023/24 rising to £29.3m in 2024/25 - even assuming a 3% increase in council tax each year.

Indeed, without the council tax increase of 3% for the coming year, the local authority would have needed to make over £5m cuts to services.

Eileen Rowand, finance executive director, said the council continues to operate in a “climate of unprecedented uncertainty”, and the impacts of that remain unknown.

“Whilst the financial impacts from the pandemic have begun to ease, it is likely that it will take some years to fully recover,” she said.

“A review of the council’s budget assumptions has been undertaken and it is clear that the financial impacts of increased expenditure and reduced income could continue for some time to come.

“The council has been able to balance its budget in recent years despite challenging settlements, however the future financial sustainability of the council is a concern given the combination of high and rising inflation along with the potential scale of core funding given the financial outlook.

“The council’s ability to take decisions to respond to these challenges is limited with the protection of a large part of council resources as a result of policy decisions made by the Scottish Government.

“Given the outlook for the future, there is a real need for more fundamental service change, improvement and prioritisation over the following years, guided by the overall principles of the medium-term financial strategy.”

The Liberal Democrat amendment proposed rejecting the administration's spending on community growing initiatives and the summer programme expansion, suggesting these were "light on detail".

Instead, they wanted to see £175,000 extra spent on road maintenance - on top of the £1.3m proposed by the administration - and £375,000 for Fife Sports and Leisure Trust programmes which would be accessible to all Fifers.

However, the SNP/Labour proposals were approved with 48 votes for the motion, eight for the Lib Dem amendment, and 12 abstentions.

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