Saturday 5 February 2011

Edinburgh Council Budget

Some productive campaigning this morning in Saughton Mains, and it stayed fine, which was nice....
Next Thursday is Budget Day and, after the usual set piece political theatre, the Council's spending plans will be set for at least the next 12 months. With Edinburgh's funding reduced by £45m (plus £7m pressures) next year there will be some difficult decisions to take. In the Labour Group, we've been wading through budget info since last September and think we've put together a set of proposals that recognises the harsh reality of the situation while prioritising front line services as much as possible and protecting them from the worst of the cuts. We've also taken the rather unusual step of publishing our budget in advance in the hope that we can generate some constructive debate around the central issues rather than just have our amendment voted down having been tabled on the day, as usually happens. If this sort of thing is of interest you can read drafts of our proposed amendment and background figures on this spreadsheet . There's even more info on Andrew Burns blog at http://andrewburns.blogspot.com/ 

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