Yesterday the Moray Conservative Group released their budget amendments for the financial year 2019/20
Commenting leader of the Conservative Group Tim Eagle said - “This year we have seen what I would argue is a piecemeal approach to the budget, with savings taken in September, December and January and more to come next week. At different points things have been added, removed and changed with confusion abounding between local people and councillors. I have received several comments from members of the public arguing they were not consulted and there is some confusion over the overall impacts of some of these savings.
"The financial strain on Moray Council is beyond painful, we have identified in the past several independent reports which clearly show that the Scottish Government has significantly reduced the grant to Moray over the years, increased our responsibilities and not factored into our annual budget the increasing pressures on some of our services.
"The sad fact is that we cannot just rip up this budget, we have a legal duty to produce a balanced budget. With this in mind we have fought to change some of the main budget lines which we have been contacted about and we are pleased to produce this budget amendment which looks to save swimming pools in Keith and Lossiemouth thanks to the overwhelming support from the public buying Fitlife cards, Active Schools & Sports Development, Reduce the harbour fees increase from 10% to 5%, Save Tomintoul library and reduce the planned 85% rise in music instruction fees to just 10%.
"This is not a win though, we think even this is terrible and so much more should be changed but the fact is our finances simply don’t allow this to happen. We have argued and debated with officers as much as possible to provide a way to make these changes and we will be proposing them at the budget meeting next week.
"It is the view of the Conservative group that we can no longer sustain these slash and burn cuts to services, we need a strategy to take us forward which has a better planned approach to service delivery. That is why beyond the changes above we will be proposing 5 core strategic strands which we believe the council must work on with all strength over the coming year to give us the best possible position come next years budget.
"Whilst I have always admitted that there are areas Moray council needs to change there is no doubt in my mind that the Scottish Government have created this problem and it is sad that our MSP has not helped us to find a way forward without destroying local services. At the end of the day Moray residents are facing a "Pay More, Get Less" budget from the SNP which is an indictment of the way they have financed local government for the last 13 years.”
