Cuts and savings totalling £21.8million were passed at Aberdeen City Council’s crunch budget meeting last night after a stormy three-and-a-half-hour debate.
The local authority was facing a black hole of around £17.5million after a cut to their grant settlement from the Scottish Government.
The ruling Labour, Conservative and Independent alliance will now seek to shed around 200 jobs through voluntary redundancy and early retirement, cut spending on foreign travel by £20,000 and abolish the controversial £80,000 a year spin doctor position among other measures.
Further funds will come through renting out the Marischal College quad to private events and hiring more council tax collectors to chase up non-payers.
Nearly £1million was also set aside for hiring around 60 pupil support assistants, £826,000 committed to upgrading playparks across the city and a study commissioned into building 2,000 council houses.
A business case will also be prepared for introducing a “low emission” zone into the city to cut traffic pollution.
But the coalition was criticised for delaying an announcement on council support for business rates- while the opposition SNP group put forward a £4million package to offset the increases.
The nationalists also want to conduct a feasibility study into a new bridge over the River Dee, given more support to community centres and offer a rent discount for teachers moving to the city.
The Liberal Democrat group propose investing £2million extra in road surfacing and conducting a feasibility study into dualling the Lang Stracht.
All parties agreed previously to freeze the council tax for another year after the E to H rates were increased by the Scottish Government.
In a bad tempered meeting, the Lord Provost had to continually tell members not to shout over each other and address remarks through him.
Council leader Jenny Laing railed against the SNP group, calling them “Nicola Sturgeon’s puppets” and described finance secretary Derek Mackay’s budget as “callous”.
She said: “Aberdeen City Council remains the lowest funded local authority in Scotland. This is an undeniable fact, we remain the nation’s cash-cow paying more income, council and business taxes than anywhere else.
“This river of money flows down to the central belt but we see very little in return.”
She was backed by deputy council leader Marie Boulton who praised the investment in play parks and pupil support assistants.
Liberal Democrat group leader Ian Yuill blamed “SNP austerity” for the cuts that had to be made.
He said: “These aren’t Westminster cuts, these are cuts we have to make because of decisions made by the Scottish Government.
“The city is already being hit because of the council tax rise and our high house prices. Now council tax is being put up again.”
Lower Deeside Labour member Tauqeer Malik said it was only the administration’s five years of “careful financial management” that had prevented deeper cuts.
But these claims were met with fury by the SNP group who pointed to recent announcements of millions of pounds extra from the Scottish Government and ridiculed the often repeated claim of Aberdeen being the government’s “forgotten city”.
Group leader Stephen Flynn said: “This is nothing but duplicity from the Labour and Conservative parties in Aberdeen. They have spent weeks talking about support for local businesses but when it came matching that rhetoric with actions they have simply walked away.
“After spending weeks slagging off the Scottish Government, saying the government doesn’t care about the local economy, they haven’t included a single penny in the budget to support our local businesses.
“It is shameful and it is a betrayal to every single business person who they falsely gave hope to.”
Deputy group leader Graham Dickson added: “We do have unique circumstances in Aberdeen. We have put forwards measures to mitigate that but the administration have done nothing.”
The administration budget was passed by 21 votes to 15 with five members abstaining.
