North Ayrshire education budget slashed by £10m

Feb 5 2010 by Lex Brown, Irvine Herald

EDUCATION will be the biggest loser as North Ayrshire Council battle to save almost £10m next year.

Provisional figures to be considered by the council next week project savings of £5m in education.

Social services would lose £1.6m, property services – including possible closures and sell-off of community centres – would save £1.3m and corporate services expect to lose almost £900,000.

Other “cross service” cuts could save around £1m.

The savage cuts are the first phase of up to £40m to be slashed from spending in North Ayrshire over the next three years.

Councillors are blaming tough financial challenges facing the entire public sector.

North Ayrshire, for their part, aim to reduce spending by around four per cent and save a further two per cent on cost-cutting initiatives each year until 2013.

In total they expect to spend up to £45m less.

The council say that by embarking on a significant programme of change, they hope to align resources with key priorities, providing more efficient and cost-effective services to meet the financial challenges.

Chief executive Elma Murray said: “We have been working for a number of months with councillors and officers and are close to agreeing a final draft for approval at the budget meeting next week.

“These interim figures give an overview of where we are in terms of managing the final challenges. The figures re-affirm the council’s commitment to providing better services more efficiently.”

This week a council insider told the Irvine Herald: “It’s been a long hard haul but we all agree we’ve got to save money.

“The main internal battle has been about what’s got to be cut.”

And they added: “It’s very hard to lay it on the line to the electorate that we just don’t have the cash to do all we would like.”