New council Administration will look at 'no redundancies' policy
Highland Council’s new Independent administration will leave no stone unturned in the hunt for further budget savings - and the council’s current policy of no compulsory redundancies may need to be re-visited.
That’s the message from Wick councillor Bill Fernie, who expects to play a leading role in the new ruling group.
He said the budget that has already been set for this year by the former SNP-led administration may also be scrutinised and the £1m pot being poured into energy efficiency savings under the council’s Carbon Clever initiative, could be scrapped or drastically scaled back.
Councillor Fernie said: “The council has got a policy of no redundancies. We hope we will be able to continue with that but at the same time we will have to look at how we deal with major expenditure and one of them is salaries.
“We are not going to go diving into it but we may have to look into the budget again for the current year as well as next year if we are going to get a grip of the budget. We are not going to rush into it because that would de-stabilise what’s been going on.”
He said energy efficiency was obviously important for the environment and it could save money in the long run but every penny was needed right now.
He added: “There’s nothing wrong with the Carbon Clever idea as such but is it really the best area to spend money on? I know that it does come with the possibility that it will make savings in the longer term but we are faced with a really dire situation with the budget that’s ahead of us. Carbon Clever, I think, is one of the areas that we will have to look at.”
The grandfather-of-one and former tax inspector has been a councillor for 12 years said he was looking forward to the challenge of being part of the administration.
“Up until now we’ve just been picking away and it’s a bit frustrating that you can’t do things, so hopefully now we can do a good job and keep the Highlands rolling forward.”
