Edinburgh council: Only days left for residents to give views on budget plans, including 10 per cent rise in parking charges

A public consultation on the proposals, which was launched in November, closes on Tuesday, January 14.

The council says it needs to save £30 million next year and has outlined how it expects to achieve that. The final budget will be agreed towards the end of February.

The budget proposals include a 10 per cent rise in pay-and-display parking charges. Picture: Scott Louden

Proposals include a 10 per cent increase in pay-and-display parking charges - double the rise the council says it was originally planning - which would bring in £600,000. An impact assessment study found the move could reduce unnecessary car trips, benefiting personal health and improving the efficiency of the transport network, but acknowledged it could also discourage people from going into the city centre to shop and going to visit family and friends.

The council also proposed to save £2.5m from a review of homelessness services, which aims to reduce the use of expensive bed and breakfast temporary accommodation by purchasing 300 properties, buying back around 60 former council houses, leasing more homes from private landlords and reducing the number of empty council houses.

Another proposal is for a £2.3m cut in devolved school management budgets - money controlled by headteachers, which they can spend on staff, equipment or resources as they choose. The council says the proposal would give heads responsibility for finding these savings in the most appropriate way for their schools.

And the council plans to remove "transition teacher" posts - which smooth the tricky transition from primary to secondary school - to save £900,000; and save a further £700,000 by reducing the number of pupil support assistants in P1 and P2 classes.

The council says it is hard to measure the effectiveness of transition teachers, but teachers' union the EIS has argued they are a core asset valued by parents, teachers and pupils.

The council expects to receive £4m from its transport companies, Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Trams, from an increased dividend, sharing the cost of concessionary travel or reviewing the level of support for the trams.

And it is also budgeting for £3.5m savings from energy costs now expected to be lower than previously feared. After the council tax freeze for the current financial year, the council says it believes it will need to increase council tax by 5 per cent, though the consultation allows people to show their support for increases of up to 15 per cent.