OIC budget agreed by councillors

OIC councillors have agreed the local authority’s budget for the next financial year.

After a lengthy process, and hours of discussions in the council chamber, as expected, council tax levels are to be frozen at current levels, and there will be no rise in ferry fares in the year ahead.

Councillors have been involved in detailed discussions over many months with OIC’s senior management team as part of the budget-setting process.

This morning, at a special meeting of the full council, councillors agreed with the policy and resources committee, which earlier this month recommended that £81.8 million should be spent on running council services in 2015-16 — an increase of £1.1 million on last year.

Spending within the authority looks set to be cut by £800,000 without redundancies being made, and a total of £3.76 million to be taken from the council’s strategic reserve fund and spent on services.

Council convener Steven Heddle said that the budget being set was the culmination of a great deal of work by the teams involved, which put the authority “in a good place” as it is able to maintain services, as well as being able to respond to emergency situations should they occur.