Report reveals council’s £200m burden
amphoto - John Lamont MSP Scottish Conservative Party pictured in his office in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in Edinburgh No Syndication No Sales Picture ALLAN MILLIGAN Tuesday11th January 2011 mobile 07884 26 78 79 e-mail - a35m@yahoo.com ...covering Politics in Scotland....
SCOTTISH Borders Council is carrying a debt of almost £200million.
Official Scottish Government figures have shown the extent of the local authority’s revenue debt up to 2011/12, which adds up to £195.9million – the equivalent of £1,732 per person in the region.
That places SBC 16th out of Scotland’s 32 councils in terms of the size of its liability, and 11th on the table of highest debts per head of population.
Much of the council’s debt is associated with the near-£80million cost of three PPP high schools at Earlston, Duns and Eyemouth.
John Lamont, Conservative MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, does not believe the current level of debt can continue.
He told us: “There is no doubt that the level of debt held by local authorities not only in the Borders but across Scotland is hugely worrying.
“The SNP Government must recognise that money does not grow on trees and put in place a strategy to check the growing debt levels.
“To go on with each Borders resident having the equivalent of £1,700 worth of debt is clearly unsustainable.
“That is why I was pleased to see the Scottish Conservative group on Scottish Borders Council making several sensible suggestions to start getting debt levels under control.”
But David Robertson, SBC’s chief financial officer, said repayment of the debt is included in its revenue budget until the financial year 2017/18, despite the council also having to shave off £27million from its spending during that time.
Mr Robertson said: “The £196million figure is the total debt associated with previous capital expenditure decisions as at March 31, 2012. This debt has been incurred building schools, roads, bridges and other vital public assets. This figure is below the Scottish average for local authority debt per head of population.
“The council’s capital expenditure decisions are regulated by the CIPFA prudential code which ensures that the costs of debt remain affordable and sustainable for the council over the longer term.
“The council’s five-year revenue budget, approved on February 7, contains the funding necessary to repay the debt associated with previous capital expenditure decisions and the costs of future planned capital investment in the Borders.”
Scottish local authorities combined debt has risen from £9.1billion to £9.5billion, working out at £1,810 per head of population.
Other notables figures show the Newtown authority’s gross expenditure on capital schemes such as new buildings and buying land and vehicles placed the Borders as the fifth lowest spenders in Scotland, on £288 per person compared to the national average of £506.
However, SBC’s lowly placing is likely to rise over the next five years after it announced a raft of capital projects in its five-year spending plans.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “In any given year capital expenditure per capita varies substantially between local authority areas. This will in part reflect the different priorities of local authorities, however, it also reflects differences in the timing of capital projects.”
Net revenue spending, covering employee costs such as wages and severance payments, as well as other operating expenses, stood at £272.6million, the equivalent of £2,410 per Borderer, just below the Scottish average of £2,416.
That position is also likely to change, with SBC’s £250million budget for each of the next five years including the introduction of new terms and conditions that would end shift and weekend additional payments, a move that has angered unions.
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