Highland Council raises council tax by 7% as it passes £818m budget unchanged as opposition plans for education reforms, free primary school meals and lower hikes in council tax were rejected
Highland Council has agreed a seven per cent council tax hike to go alongside £21.5 million of new investments in teachers, social care and local transport.
The £818 million annual budget has just been decided at a full meeting of the council after it was contested by three separate sets of amendments by opposition groups.
The headline announcement is the council tax rise that will come as a blow for many householders arriving alongside rises in inflation and the energy price cap and an eight per cent hike in council rents.
Among the other significant investments will be £21.5 million of investment directed at teaching, social care, local transport and a new Poverty and Equality Commission.
They include creating at least 100 new jobs, to “significantly expand” the in-house bus service, more support for teachers and increased social care funding.
Members of Highland Council’s SNP-Independent political leadership literally applauded their own budget containing seven per cent tax hikes that will pile the financial pressure on householders.
Member after member of the administration stood up in the chamber to praise the spending, cut and investment plans as some went so far as to call the best budget many of them had seen.
There were three significant challenges to the budget – the first from the Liberal Democrats was an ambitious attempt that, if accepted, could have overhauled how education was delivered.
The proposals to look at a new super school, bursars to free up head teachers to concentrate on education, strategic education bosses and specialised teaching staff to model best practices in Maths, English, Chemistry, Physics, Biology and ASN were rejected.
The Conservative group came in with ambitious hopes of limiting the council tax rise to just three per cent while at the same time providing free school meals to primary pupils.
And Labour sought an amendment also on education which would “encourage early intervention” to “address sickness absence, to offer support to teachers” so that “changes in working practice or conditions which might assist in reducing absences are implemented as soon as practical.”
But all of these were voted down leaving the budget unchanged.
