Highland Council potential budget gap widens to £40m

Highland Council has said it must save more money in 2016-17 than it had previously thought.

The local authority was expecting to have to tackle a funding gap of more than £21m, but that figure has been revised up to £40m.

The council said the figure was reviewed following last week's UK government Autumn Statement.

Senior councillors said they wanted to protect education from cuts and avoid compulsory redundancies.

Council leader Margaret Davidson said the Autumn Statement had included a 4-5% cut to Scotland's budget and this would filter down to local authorities in terms of less funding from the Scottish government.

She told BBC Alba that trying to find savings of £21m, which was on top of £10m of cuts already agreed for 2016-17, had been "bad enough".

She added: "Now we are being told the gap could be up to £40m, almost double what we had been expecting."

World War Two

Ms Davidson said Highland Council would be calling for an end to the council tax freeze, as it has done in the past, to allow it to generate more revenue.

Budget leader Bill Fernie described the savings local authorities were having to make as the hardest since World War Two.

Last week, Highland Council said it was looking at closing all its offices and schools from lunchtime on Fridays to help it save money.

Views have been sought from the public on the plan and other ideas to help the council tackle a hole in its budget.

Reducing the working and school week to 4.5 days would result in significant savings, the council has said.