Edinburgh council: Budget deal will see council tax rise by 8 per cent while school jobs saved
Edinburgh's minority Labour administration looks set to get its budget passed by the full council after reaching a deal with the Lib Dems and Conservatives.
It will mean a council tax rise of 8 per cent and on-street parking charges increasing by around 10 per cent.
But proposed cuts to transition teachers and pupil support assistants (PSAs) will be dropped. There will be extra money for special schools. A one-off sum of £1.6 million will be allocated to help clear a backlog of road safety projects.
And there will be new cash to invest in technology for social care and enforcement on flytipping, dog fouling and litter, possibly through extra wardens.
Labour has only 11 out of the 63 councillors, so needs the support of at least two other parties to ensure a majority for their proposals. Final talks were continuing on Wednesday afternoon, but it is understood the budget package had effectively been agreed.
Support from the Lib Dems, with 13 councillors, and the Tories, with 10, will see the administration's budget for 2025/26 approved at the council meeting on Thursday.
The Lib Dems had said they would not vote for a budget which included the planned £1.6m cuts to transition teachers and PSAs. They also pressed for the one-off injection of funding for road safety projects to clear what parents say is a 25-year backlog, and the £3.6m for improvements to the buildings of special schools.
It is understood Labour has also agreed to ditch a proposed increase in pay for committee conveners to help meet some of the extra spending.
The Tories had put forward a number of initiatives with a price tag of £500,000 each. One was to establish an innovation and transformation fund at the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board, responsible for social care, which they want NHS Lothian to match-fund, with the money used to borrow money to fund projects in areas like IT, telecare or other investment.
Another initiative would focus on enforcement of rules on flytipping, dog fouling and litter, possibly through boosting the number of wardens.
Other projects would look at boosting the council's data analytics to give more detail on people's needs; and learning best practice on educational attainment. It is understood Labour will agree to fund all these proposals.
East Lothian Council has already agreed its council tax will increase by 10 per cent, the first local authority in Scotland to do so.