Welcome to our Budget Consultation

The Council and other public services have a vital role in supporting local people and communities.

Just like it is with your household budget, we and our community planning partners are experiencing big increases in the cost of energy, goods and services. We are also seeing increased demand for services and our population is getting older.

We recognise the important role that local people, our communities and partners have to play in shaping public services. More than ever we need to prioritise services and budgets, and the decisions that we need to make will affect the services on which we all rely. We want to hear your views so that we can do everything we can to reduce that impact.

We have provided the following information to help you understand how we set our priorities and how Council services are funded. We would encourage you to read this before having your say.

How Council funding works

Watch our video about understanding how the budget works:

What we do

Scottish councils are responsible for providing many public services, such as:

• schools
• housing
• health and social care
• street lighting
• roads maintenance
• refuse collection
• planning
• building standards
• economic development
• elections

Where our funding comes from

To pay for these services, councils get money from three main sources:

• Scottish Government Revenue Grant: This is the money that the Scottish Government gives to councils every year. The amount of money depends on various factors, such as the population, levels of poverty, and the cost of providing services in each council area. The Council may also receive Government grants which must be used for specific purposes.
• Non-Domestic Rates: These are the taxes that businesses and other non-residential properties pay based on the value of their property. Rates are set by the Scottish Government and councils collect the taxes, which are then pooled nationally and redistributed across Councils based on the level of need.
• Council Tax: This is the tax that households pay based on the value of their property. Each council sets its own rate of Council Tax every year. The money raised from Council Tax stays with the council that collects it and can be used for any general service.

Councils also receive income by charging fees for some services, such as parking, leisure facilities, planning applications, and school meals. The amount of income varies depending on the type and level of service provided by the council.

Councils also have reserves to deal with unexpected events or to fund planned one-off costs or manage changes or downsizing, but not to support recurring costs. Much like using savings to offset monthly household bills the use of financial reserves cannot solve a budget problem but can allow for short term smoothing of the impact of reductions.

The difference between revenue and capital budgets

The difference between revenue and capital budgets is that revenue budgets comprise money that councils spend annually on ongoing public services, while capital budgets are money that councils spend on a one-off basis creating or improving buildings, roads or other assets, mainly funded by borrowing.

For example, if a council wants to build a new school, it would use its capital budget to pay for the construction costs and use its revenue budget to pay for the staff and resources needed to run the school.

The council rents out around 12,000 council houses and has a separate housing account. Income received from rent payers can only be spent on services for council tenants, including investment to improve existing homes and to build new ones.

Council priorities

Our Strategic Plan sets out what we want to achieve and how we are going to get there. It is aligned to the Community Plan and is based on a understanding of the things that matter most to our residents and allows us to priorities how we spend our money. The key themes of our plan are:

• building a fairer economy
• tackling poverty and inequality
• improving community wellbeing
• supporting children and young people
• delivering a Clean Green East Ayrshire
• ensuring financial sustainability and resilience

The pressures currently facing the Council’s budget

Some of the pressures currently facing the council’s budget are:

• demographic change in East Ayrshire, with an aging population and declining birth rate, requiring a significant reallocation of public sector resources
  
  

East Ayrshire Population Projections

• impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has increased the demand for some services, such as health and social care, public health, and education, while reducing the income from other services, such as leisure, parking, and planning
• rising cost of living and inflation, which have eroded the value of the council’s funding and increased the cost of delivering services
• uncertainty over future funding levels and sources, which makes it difficult for the council to plan ahead and invest in long-term projects
• legal and policy obligations that the council has to meet, such as implementing national policies, maintaining statutory services, and paying staff salaries and pensions
• public expectations and preferences that the council has to balance, such as providing high-quality services, protecting vulnerable groups, and keeping taxes low

How these pressures might impact on the Council’s budget

The impact of these pressures on East Ayrshire Council’s budget will depend on how the council decides to deal with them. However, some possible impacts are the Council may have to:

• reduce the quality or quantity of some services, which may affect the well-being and satisfaction of residents
• increase the fees or charges for some services, which may affect the affordability and accessibility of these services for some groups
• raise the Council Tax, which may affect the disposable income and living standards of households
• use our reserves, however, this would affect our financial sustainability and resilience in the long term
• reduce our investment in capital projects, such as new buildings, roads, or equipment, which may affect economic growth and development in the future

It is important for us to consult with our stakeholders and residents to understand your views and priorities and to communicate our decisions and rationale clearly and transparently.

Have your say

By taking part in our consultation, you will help shape the services that matter most to people and communities in the years ahead.

You can have your say on the future of our services by completing the online survey between now and 15 December 2023.

Community conversations

We will also be hosting face to face events across East Ayrshire between 21 November and 15 December 2023, where you can make your views known.

Our community conversations will focus on what matters most to you and whether our priorities are still the right ones. After a short presentation there will be informal round table discussion and the chance to put questions to the Council’s Management Team.

What happens next

Your views will help shape our future priorities, ensuring that our resources are used to effectively meet the needs of local communities.

We will analyse the feedback we receive, the results will be reported to the Council and Community Planning Partnership Board before the end of March 2024 and we will publish a summary on this page.