Peeblesshire News | News | Council tax freeze approved

Sunday, 20th July, 2008

Published: Friday, 15th February, 2008 10:30

Council tax freeze approved

By Susie Penman

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AFTER dealing with a “difficult financial year”, Scottish Borders Council Administration approved a zero-per-cent rise in council tax.

The Administration's budget proposals for 2008/2009 were unanimously approved at a meeting of the full Council yesterday, Thursday.

The Council's budget has now risen to £249 million.

Leader of the Council, Councillor David Parker, said: " It was a challenging task to manage this tight settlement, but I'm very pleased that we are able to freeze council tax and leave the Council's reserves untouched. Borders residents will, I'm sure, appreciate the increased resources going into frontline services."

“There’s not all the money in administration that we’d like,” he added.

“The government will need to prioritize additional financial resources to make a zero per cent increase happen in the next couple of years.”

Councillor Parker also stressed the need to avoid “short terms fixes that cause long term problems”, adding that the new budget would be sustainable for future years.

The key word of the Council meeting being ‘efficiency’, Councillor Parker stressed that the reserve fund would not be used to support the budget, and that the efficiency exemplified by local government helped recycle money into frontline services.

“We set out promises, we made promises, we intend to keep them,” he said, adding: “Efficiency is not a bad thing.”

Depute Leader Alex Nicol commented: "This has been a carefully thought-out budget and we have given consideration to the predicted rise in the population of the Borders - hence the added investment in schools and in services for the elderly.

“This budget contains good news for a lot of people.”

And Depute Leader Neil Calvert added: "Everyone involved in setting this budget has worked hard.

“We have come up with a good plan to maintain and improve our services, while making efficiency savings of £4.4 million, which will be re-invested in our services. “

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