The Highland Council administration could still face a budget deficit of more than £4.8million once it implements its new savings plan, according to a leaked report.
The Press and Journal can today reveal the extent of the local authority’s cost-cutting proposal, including axing 360 full time equivalent (FTE) jobs over the next three years.
Care and education are likely to be hit hardest, with £11million of cuts in 2016/17 – which is in addition to pre-agreed savings of £3.9million.
In total, the department could have £19.5million slashed over the next three years, with 131.7 FTE job losses.
Community services are also expected to be dealt a blow, with £5.7million to be cut in the next three years.
Details of the budget proposals were contained in an e-mail sent from finance director Derek Yule to all councillors on Friday.
Mr Yule added: “Despite the significant challenges, and difficulty in presenting many of these proposals, I am afraid that a gap of £4.812million remains.”
Last night, councillors expressed their serious concerns about the “severe impact” of the cuts on services across the region.
Initially, the council administration was facing a budget black hole of £48million, but £10million worth of savings was agreed in December 2014, leaving a budget gap of £38million for 2016/17.
The administration has indicated it will aim to save £56million in total over the next three years.
Proposals are not finalised, but the yet-to-be-released report is indicative of the work that the administration still has left to do before the budget savings proposal deadline on February 25.
Yesterday budget leader councillor Bill Fernie declined to comment on the report with discussions still ongoing.
Councillor Maxine Smith, leader of the SNP opposition, said: “Whilst the opposition understands what a difficult budget this one is – having to find over £46million of savings in addition to the £10million for this year already agreed at the last budget – we do feel that a different approach may have been helpful.
“We have always said that with savings of this scale the council needs to review how it works and consider a restructure of departments, chopping some employees from the top to save some from the bottom.
“The council has six directors that could be reduced to four and the ward managers are a hit and miss, depending which ward you are in and need to be looked at.
“Basically a bottom up approach is needed to review everything the council does and this should have been started last year.”
Ms Smith also suggested the SNP group will seek to find alternatives for “some of the harsher savings the Independents are putting forward”.
She added: “Their budget is full of proposals that the SNP group will struggle to accept.”
Councillor Alasdair Christie, Liberal Democrat leader, said: “I think the extent of savings proposals that have been released by the administration group are far reaching and will severely impact much of the services in the Highland region.
“I think it’s going to be very interesting to see the proposals that are put up by councillor Davidson and her group to close this remaining gap.”
Council leader Margaret Davidson was unavailable for comment last night.