SCOTTISH Borders Council has backed a £254 million spending programme for the coming financial year.

And its members have also voted through the inclusion of a controversial building to house the Great Tapestry of Scotland at Tweedbank i9n its Capital Finance Plan.

Although there’s a cash increase of £2 million on current annual revenue expenditure, extra pressures on services – including a pay increase for its 5,500 staff and more demands on social work services – means savings of more than £8 million are required in 2015/16.

Chief among the new burdens are “demographic and other service pressures”, estimated at £5.2m and due principally to a surge in the number of vulnerable and elderly young people requiring social work support.

And pay increases for the council’s 5,500 staff, who have sustained two wage freezes in the last five years, will cost around £2.2m to deliver.

With the SNP/Independent/Lib Dem ruling administration at Newtown recommending an eighth successive freeze in Council Tax – at £1,084 for Band D households – the council is being asked to agree a range of measures to address the shortfall.

Around 55 jobs will be shed in 2015/16 as part of a strategy to “make better use of our people” and deliver savings of around £3.6m. There will not, however, be any compulsory redundancies.

The shortfall will also be mitigated by improvements to IT (£750,000) and increased charges to the public for a range of council services (£780,000).

Although individual devolved school management budgets will be protected, around £2m will be saved on education as a result of a fall in pupil numbers, altering the terms and conditions of non-teaching staff and sending less children with special needs to expensive placements in other local authority areas.

The outsourcing of adult care services to an arms length company from April 1 and the transfer of cultural services, including libraries and museums, to a trust later in the year will yield another £600,000 of savings.

Councillor Michelle Ballantyne, leader of the Conservative opposition at Newtown, confirmed ahead of the budget meeting that her party was “broadly supportive” of the programme drawn up by the SNP/Independent/Lib Dem administration and funded by Council Tax, non-domestic rates and a revenue support grant from the Scottish Government.

While the Conservatives supported the revenue budget the group did attempt to remove the allocation of £6 million in the capital programme for a new building at Tweedbank to house the Great Tapestry of Scotland.

After voting for the project in principle December, councillors were asked to support spending £200,000 in 2015/16 and £5.8 million the following year for construction which is dependent on a £2.5 million contribution from the Scottish Government.

A report on the capital programme from chief financial officer David Robertson cautioned: “There is still a significant amount of work that is still to be undertaken to get the project fully defined, the external funding secured and construction works tendered.” But the Tweedbank proposals gathered enough support to be passed on a vote of 19 to 11.

Brian McCrow, the Innerleithen community councillor who 10 days ago launched a petition calling for the tapestry decision to be overturned, has not given up on reversing the decision.

He said: “The Scottish Government has promised £10 million for regeneration along the 30-mile railway corridor and the Borders is to get 25 per cent of that total,” claimed Mr McCrow.

“This should cover the 20 miles from Heriot to Tweedbank, but instead the whole lot is going on the tapestry building. I cannot believe the residents of Falahill, Heriot, Fountainhall, Stow and Galashiels think this is an equitable use of these funds.” Mr McCrow, who has set a deadline of February 23 for his petition to be signed, said it had already been supported by 1,300 people online and by more than 2,000 who had signed paper copies in local shops.

Although that represents a £2m cash increase on Scottish Borders Council’s current running cost expenditure – raised by Council Tax, non-domestic rates and Scottish Government grant – additional budget pressures worth £8.6m have been identified.