| Finance Secretary John Swinney has announced councils are to receive a total of nearly £12bn for the next financial year, which will include £70m to encourage them to continue the council tax freeze.
Mr Swinney said the overall settlement would have been £174m higher had it not been for a funding cut of £500m “imposed on the Scottish budget by the UK government”.
Although the figures do not give a breakdown of how much each local authority will receive, they are in line with information submitted to Dundee’s policy and resources committee last month by the council’s finance director Marjory Stewart.
In her report she said the Scottish Government’s budget had been reduced by £521m for 2010-11 as UK government departments had to find an extra £5bn of efficiency savings.
“The 2010-11 draft Scottish budget shows local government has been allocated a one-third share (£174m) of this reduction,” she said.
Ms Stewart said a projected revenue budget for the city council for that financial year had been prepared, based on the information then available, and showed savings and efficiencies of £7.655m would be required to deliver a Council Tax freeze.
Deducting the government grant for freezing the Council Tax — which in Dundee’s case is expected to be just over £1.76m — reduced the actual level of savings required to just under £5.9m. |
