More than £6million worth of savings has been made by Moray Council through “efficiencies” during the last year.
Staff at the authority have been tasking with finding ways to save money as finances have become increasingly strained.
The council was initially forecast to go bankrupt this year before officers identified efficiency savings to be made alongside budget reductions to help stretch reserve funding.
However, warnings have been made that a further £19million worth of savings will need to be found over the next two years to keep the books in the black.
Efficiency savings made during the last year include reducing electric bills, increasing the use of online payments for services including school meals and a reduction in rubbish being sent to landfill.
Yesterday Aaron McLean, chairman of the council’s policy and resources committee, praised the work by staff to contribute towards the savings.
He said: “There’s been a lot of work going on about this for a good while – it’s all about trying to find the smaller savings to work towards the bigger ones.
“Staff have done a sterling job to reach this total. We have been told it might be harder to continue to find them in future years but these warnings have been made in the past and they have still been found.
“It’s going in the right direction.”
Authorities across the country have been tasked by the Scottish Government to trim 3% off their annual budgets through efficiencies.
Moray Council’s final total of nearly £6.1million represents 3.11% of its annual running costs for its general services.
In a report, the authority’s principal accountant Paul Connor said the final total may actually be higher while warning savings have had to be balanced by the need not to reduce the quality services.
He said: “The council has many competing priorities and time spent on recording and measuring efficiency gains has to be weighed against many of these other priorities.
“It is recognised that not all savings made through efficiencies will have been captured and quantified.
“In particular, savings which arise as the result of new duties being absorbed by staff have not been captured due to the inherent difficulties of measuring these.”
