FAQs

The Scottish Government announced plans on 17 October 2023 to freeze council tax for 2024/25.  To do this the Scottish Government increases council budgets by a fixed percentage.  In previous years this increase has been comparable to a council tax raise of 3%. The Council has not been notified of the level of increase that the Scottish Government intends to apply.

The majority of buildings available for retail businesses are owned and managed by private companies or individuals.  The council offers a range of support to local businesses and landlords through our Business Support Team.  When it comes to empty buildings owned by private companies or individuals we can only get involved directly if the building itself is neglected and becomes dangerous.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations organisation that includes 195 member countries and thousands of independent scientific experts, published a Synthesis Report in March 2023. It concluded that human activities, principally through greenhouse gas emissions, have unequivocally caused global warming. The main drivers of these emissions are energy use, land use, and the consumption and production of goods. We respond locally to these challenges through our Change Strategy.  You can get more information on our website

It is really expensive to send household waste to landfill.  The Council is charged for every tonne of waste we send to landfill.  Not only is recycling better for the environment, but reducing the amount of waste we send to landfill saves money.

As our communities and residents continue to expect, and use, digital solutions to engage with us, the need for in person office visits has reduced significantly over recent years. We have worked extensively to reflect this change in demand by digitising services, moving processes to our online customer service platform and redesigning our telephone network to provide a seamless, flexible solution for our communities and residents. We are pleased with the results so far:

• increasing our number of online customer accounts from 3,000 accounts pre-pandemic to over 51,000 online accounts.
• providing over 60 self-service applications online. 
• receiving 120,000 visits each month to our website with 43% of customer contact managed through our online self-service platform.
• increasing our online transactions from 1,500 monthly pre–pandemic to over 25,000 monthly, reducing paper handling, improving processing times and saving money.

In 2018, we stopped taking cash and moved to more efficient payment methods including direct debit, online transactions and card payments. We did this because face-to-face cash transactions are more expensive to process and deliver, and cost the Council considerably more than electronic transactions.

We are committed to developing the talents and career prospects of our young people and continue to expand activities and resources in line with the Scottish Government’s Young Person’s Guarantee scheme.

We have used additional funding to support our most disengaged young people with tailored mentoring to help them move towards employment, and set up 40 supported apprenticeships with East Ayrshire Council, the Health and Social Care Partnership and a range of third sector and private organisations.

This isn’t something that we can do as the structure of local government in Scotland is enshrined in law and controlled by the Scottish Government.