Highland Council will not get Scottish Government cash to fill £100m budget gap
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The Scottish Government will not provide Highland Council with any additional funds to plug its financial black hole that is reported to be in the region of £67 million to £97m, according to leading councillors.
The revelation came at today’s corporate resources committee after Councillor Carolyn Caddick asked if the local authority would get extra government cash.
Last week, the council revealed that it had projected a deficit of up to £97 million in papers for the committee.
Councillor Caddick underlined the importance of the issue by saying that if there was no funding forthcoming it would mean the council having to "slash and burn" some services.
She said: “Exactly how much are we asking the Scottish Government for to help us and then, realistically, how much are we going to get? Because at the moment it doesn’t look terribly promising.
“It looks like we may have to do a bit of a slash and burn of our services in order to maintain the obligatory services.”
Councillor Ian Cockburn, co-leader of the SNP group, agreed that there would be no further new cash from Edinburgh but sought to point the finger of blame at Westminster.
He said: “Regarding Councillor Caddick’s point about governments, that is correct but remember the Scottish Government only gets pocket money from Westminster and we have already heard they will not pay out local government.
“So what does that mean for us? I am just saying – that is what we have got to look at, because we have only got a certain amount of pocket money to play with up here.”
The budget leader, Councillor Alister Mackinnon, confirmed that, saying: “In relation to income from the Scottish Government we have already been told that we are not going to receive any so we will just keep lobbying – that is the fact.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We have been working closely with Cosla [Convention of Scottish Local Authorities] and local governments since the beginning of the pandemic and have committed over £300 million of additional funding for Covid-19 measures, on top of the local government finance settlement of £11.4 billion from this year’s budget.
“Local government consequentials worth £155 million will be made to councils in June alongside the weekly general revenue grant payments.
“The first instalment will have been received today. Following agreement with Cosla, we are also front-loading the normal weekly grant payments by £300 million to ease local authorities' cash-flow problems.”
