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Falkirk Council has agreed to a 3% increase in Council Tax for 2019/20 that will see an average ‘D Band’ Council tax figure increase £34 a year.

The Council passed its revenue budget on 27 February and will see around £340m spent across all communities in the Falkirk Council area over the next year.

The Integrated Joint Board (a Partnership with NHS Forth Valley) had a budget allocated of £65.1m to allow it to deliver adult social care and health services across the area and Falkirk Community Trust received c£10.8m to provide sport, recreation, arts, heritage and library services.

The Council already approved its Housing investment and spending plans in January.

Forward projections show a current £76m budget deficit over the next five years however a new five year business plan designed to tackle this is being produced to be launched later this year.

Specific areas where spending will take place includes:

  • Children Services (including schools, nurseries, criminal justice and community learning) will receive £193.6m
  • Development Services (including roads, street lighting, economic development and planning, waste, environmental protection) will receive £27.6m)
  • Corporate and Housing (including support and democratic services, finance and HR services and Council Housing will receive £26.3m.

Funds have also been identified for smaller specific areas including:

  • £200k for 14 Support for Learning Assistants
  • £40k allocated for food banks and holiday activities for children
  • Continuing to spend more than £2.6m to external organisations in the community
  • No increase in charges for school meals

Councillor Cecil Meiklejohn, Leader of Falkirk Council said: “Our spending priorities for this year remain focussed on those who need our support most.

“We have listened to residents through a comprehensive survey we conducted prior to finalising our proposals and have ensured that what they feel strongly about is reflected in the services we deliver.

“This year’s budget reflects our priorities of people, place and partnership and we are looking at new ways of involving communities in decision making such as small grants, locality based budgets and working with communities to redesign services.

“There is also large scale investment to allow us to continue to protect our assets and expand economic growth across the area and we will be spending £220m over the next years on major projects across all our communities.

“Our transformation project ‘Council of the Future’ is making huge savings through efficiencies with around £9m projected for next year alone. We have also reduced the number of buildings we own helping us to lower costs. We’re also increasing the number of online services we can offer such as ‘My Falkirk’ again making a big difference to our finances.

“We have also been transforming how we deliver our services in many ways making our work more efficient and targeted at those who need it most such as the new Advice Hubs. We have also made it easier for residents to carry out transactions locally in a network of more than 100 locations which helps us free up staff so they can target the more vulnerable in our communities.

“Over the past four years we have reduced our workforce by more than 6% through voluntary methods making significant savings to our wages bill.

“We have the drive and ambition to see all Falkirk Council services are doing the very best for the communities we serve despite challenging financial times.”

As part of its budget, investment programmes across the Falkirk Council area were also agreed to run over the next five years helping to fund major projects and work to improve the area. In total, £220m will be committed to the various projects.

An extension to Maddiston primary school (£4m)

An extension to Denny primary school (£2.2m)

Further work on the new Denny Eastern Access Road (£4.6m)

Roads maintenance (£19.1m)

Road safety schemes (£4.3m)

Business property reinvestment (£2m)

Playpark upgrades (£0.4m)

Improvements to the Avon Gorge Road (£7.9m)

Full information is available from our budget pages.