Face-to-face meetings scheduled

FACE-TO-FACE meetings are to be held between senior Aberdeen City Council officials and groups affected by £27million budget cuts.

Groups which have not yet attended meetings with officials and councillors were yesterday urged to get in touch with the council and arrange a “get-together” session at the Town House.

The move follows criticism that the council had not adequately explained the cuts to those affected.

The local authority said meetings had already taken place with Glencraft board members, Doonies Farm stakeholders, Aye Can clients, bowling club members, pool users and voluntary sector representatives.

Representatives from homeless charity the Cyrenians, which announced 30 jobs would go as a result of the cuts yesterday, will attend today.

“We fully understand that people are being affected by many of the extremely difficult decisions that were taken at the budget meeting in February and that people need explanations of why they had to be taken,” a council spokesman said.

“We have a clear duty to target our scarce resources at core services and not spend money on services which are underused.

“We also needed to take action to bring our spending more into line with other local authorities and match it more closely with our grant settlement from central government.”

Groups affected by the cuts are also to meet at the Aberdeen Arts Centre on Friday, at a meeting arranged by city Labour MPs.