Midlothian man hits out at "confusing nature" of council's public consultation on proposed budget cuts

Midlothian Council is currently seeking the views of local residents on savings proposals to bridge a projected budget gap of £9.406 million in 2025/26. The local authority’s saving proposals consultation runs until November 20. Councillors will consider the consultation findings before the 2025/26 Budget setting meeting early next year. However, Gladhouse resident Jon Steele has criticised the complexity of the consultation and is asking why it is so difficult to complete.

Midlothian Council’s headquarters at Midlothian House, Buccleuch Street, Dalkeith.

He said: “I think someone should be looking at the online document and questioning its design complexity and confusing nature. I doubt anyone will find this easy to understand or complete. That has not been the case before. Which begs the question, why?

“I suspect to decrease the response rate, skew the response rate to those least affected by the cuts and to collect minimal and scrambled data so it can be ignored or dismissed when informing councillors on how to base decisions on making yet further cuts.

“I have a degree and post-grad qualifications and I struggled to meaningfully fill this in. It also took me 40 minutes. If this wasn’t deliberately designed like this for the above reasons, then it is incompetently designed for its target audience.”

Defending the public consultation, a spokeswoman for Midlothian Council said help is available for people to fill in the online document.

She said: “We’ve had 827 responses to the consultation in less than two weeks since its launch. Our intent is to encourage many more until its closing date of November 20.

“There is lots of supporting information about how the council gets and spends its money to help respondents understand the financial position.

“We’re very grateful people are taking the time to fill it in as our aim is to get as comprehensive a picture as possible of the impact of our savings decisions. If anyone is finding it difficult to fill in, our library staff are happy to help.”