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Budget 2019/20

Your Vibrant Voices are helping to shape our future as we work together to transform our Council and put people and communities at the heart of everything we do.

Last year, we asked you about reducing demand, tackling poverty, serving you better and increasing income. Your ideas, views and suggestions are now informing how we plan and deliver our services into the future.

This year we have been:

  • working more closely with our communities to reduce demand and build our services around people and place
  • reducing our staffing levels through workforce planning and service redesign
  • reducing the number of workplaces and making better use of our property and buildings
  • becoming more digitally connected by moving more of our services online
  • looking at all opportunities to increase income to sustain our services

To date these initiatives have generated £6.347m savings, as we continue our transformational journey to become a more efficient and sustainable organisation.

Budget gap 2019/20

The budget gap for 2019/20 is £10.334m. Most of the savings required will be achieved through management actions with minimal impact on frontline services.

However, to bridge our funding gap, we want to hear your Vibrant Voices about how we reduce costs and increase income to protect and sustain the essential services we deliver for East Ayrshire.

We will increase fees and charges across all services in line with inflation, but would be interested to hear your views on any areas where you feel a bigger increase might be justified – especially where we are significantly below the Scottish average.

We intend to increase parking charges in all our surface car parks with the multi-storey car park remaining the cheapest option for parking in Kilmarnock town centre. Further opportunities around parking charges are also being explored with more detailed engagement planned in the coming months.

Together, these will provide opportunities for funds raised to be reinvested in our communities through innovative schemes.

Feedback from previous Vibrant Voices conversations suggested that we should review services where we have no statutory duty, for example, pest control and subsidised school transport. We know these services are valued by our communities, but at the same time, we must carefully consider the cost of providing them as budgets continue to reduce in the years ahead.

Consultation

Our budget consultation is now closed. The budget will be set on Thursday 28 February 2019.

Contact Information

Corporate Support
Council Headquarters
London Road
Kilmarnock
KA3 7BU
Telephone: 01563 576075

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