IT should come as no surprise to anyone that East Dunbartonshire Council has been warned it is not doing enough to make savings and tackle its funding gap. East Dunbartonshire has been inspected by Audit Scotland three times already, with another inspection planned for next year, and the message to the council could not be clearer: get your act together.
However, the council does deserve some credit as well as criticism. For years now, it has been clear that Scotland’s councils need to do much more to share facilities and services across their boundaries – it is a change The Herald called for as part of the Reshaping Scotland campaign – and, to be fair to East Dunbartonshire, it is one of the few councils that has actually taken some serious steps towards sharing with its neighbours. There have also been improvements since Audit Scotland’s last report.
However, the big question for East Dunbartonshire is why it is apparently still failing to get to grips with its finances. The Audit Scotland report says that cash-saving projects which had been lined up have been delayed by over three years; there are also concerns about the size of redundancy payments.
The financial pressures were not self-imposed of course – ultimately, the UK Government’s austerity is responsible for the massive budget cuts – but councils need to face the real financial situation and accept that they have to be leaner and cheaper.
There are admittedly some questions about Audit Scotland and why it is not able to bring about improvements despite issuing three damning reports but ultimately it is East Dunbartonshire Council that needs to accept its responsibilities.
The council likes to give the impression that all is well and being run smoothly but it has failed to take some basic steps towards financial stability. It must now reassure voters that the accounts are being managed wisely and that it has a long-term plan for stability.
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