Aberdeen City Council Buget 2007/2008
Aberdeen City Council has approved a Council Tax increase of 2.89% for the coming financial year – keeping our promise to the people of Aberdeen to keep the rise to no more than inflation. (This represents a weekly increase of 66p for citizens in Band D of the Council Tax).
Aberdeen continues to be a major global player with a considerable international reputation. Both the City and the Council are already addressing major challenges, including: diversification and globalisation; dealing with the wide variations in standards of living; catering for an ageing population, and redeveloping a number of key aspects of our infrastructure amongst which are the Greater City Centre, transport and housing. Through our support and investment in facilities, events, and promotion, we are also creating a cultural vibrancy which we believe now stands comparison with Scotland’s other major cities.
An essential part of our joint working is in ensuring that the City continues to be an attractive place in which to live, work and visit, and that residents and businesses alike are proud of their City and what it has to offer.
One of the key drivers will be our ambitious approach to Development and Regeneration. Now well in train, it will improve the quality of life for citizens. With our continued focus on our customers, this budget has also ensured that we continue to put local people at the heart of local decision-making and planning. We have ‘switched on’ our neighbourhood networks, ensuring that communities are fully engaged in the operational and strategic planning and, importantly, the delivery of services across the City and that budgets will be delivered in such a way that ensures we tackle priority issues within each of our 37 Neighbourhoods.
Our commitment to further investment will also help to deliver our Vision of being “recognised within the city and more widely, as being a leading Council in Northern Europe by 2010”.
And the key to ensuring that we seize these major opportunities is in working closely with you, our partners from the private and public sector.
2007 - 2008 Council Tax Bands
| Existing 2006/2007 | 2.89% increase | 2007/08 |
|---|---|---|
| Band A £797.22 | £23.04 | £820.26 |
| Band B £930.09 | £26.88 | £956.97 |
| Band C £1,062.96 | £30.72 | £1,093.68 |
| Band D £1,195.83 | £34.56 | £1,230.39 |
| Band E £1,461.57 | £42.24 | £1,503.81 |
| Band F £1,727.31 | £49.92 | £1,777.23 |
| Band G £1,993.0 | £57.60 | £2,050.65 |
| Band H £2,391.66 | £69.12 | £2,460.78 |
Our Achievements:
The budget meeting also provided an ideal opportunity to reflect upon the most recent achievements throughout the City, including:
- The lifting of the Airport curfew, and the runway extension approved.
- Significant progress in the redevelopment of Marischal College – and the much-awaited demolition of St Nicholas House
- The refinancing package for Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre, approved by Council in August 2005, has put AECC on a sound financial footing. This has helped to ensure that the Centre continues to go from strength to strength and has increased the number of visitors and number of conferences and conventions attracted to the City – for business, sports and cultural events alike. T his will continue to deliver a substantial, projected economic impact upon the City and Shire to the tune of £53million in 07/08, including Offshore Europe, and a projected benefit of just under £38million every other year.
- The development of a series of major projects such as the City Centre Masterplan, the Western Peripheral Route, the 3 Rs Project, and the development of Guild Street (Union Square) along with others.
- An additional £7million investment in the City’s infrastructure, including road and footway improvements, road safety, drainage and traffic light schemes.
- A complete redesign and modernisation of our refuse collection and cleansing service.
- Aberdeen being rated, by British Gas, as Scotland’s most energy efficient city – with some of the greatest efficiencies in predominantly Council house areas in some of our poorest neighbourhoods.
All this has been achieved against a backdrop of keeping expenditure to a level which has seen Council Tax rises under our Administration being approximately inflationary for this and last year’s budgets.
Looking ahead
The continuing modernisation of the Council will further improve performance, modernise our services, and drive up productivity levels, all to ensure that public funds provide maximum return.
Yesterday’s announcement was good news for motorists, with another freeze on car parking charges, alongside a freeze of the costs of resident/business parking permits. You will also see further investment in roads, street lighting, improved access to buildings for people with disabilities, new civic amenity sites for waste, new sports facilities and schools.
The extra 66p a week will be invested in:
- An additional £1 million on pavement and road surfacing, road safety and traffic management works. The huge programme of replacing thousands of Aberdeen's old lighting columns continues apace with another £2 million committed towards the project. This will replace a further 2,000 lamps.
- An additional £800,000 will be invested in improving access to buildings under the Disability Discrimination Act.
New waste facilities, costing £700,000, will be provided to the west of the city to take bulky domestic waste, which is unsuitable for kerbside collection.
- Over the next three years £2.5 million will be invested on sports projects providing facilities at a national and international standard to develop regional sporting excellence.
- Duthie Park receives a boost with £110,000 to be spent on renewing the water network, to stop the unsustainable water leakages.
- There is good news for Woodside Community Centre where an extra £710,000 will be invested over the next two years on the Customer Access Point.
- The investment in staff development continues with £700,000 allocated in this year's budget. An additional £2.5 million will be ploughed into information technology and an additional £2 million on ICT in schools over the next three years.
- In the priority communities of Cummings Park, Middlefield, Woodside, Tillydrone, Seaton and Torry, we will see about 5,500 homes replaced with 4,500 fit-for-purpose and desirable homes for affordable rent, and another 585 for low-cost home ownership along with other private developments.
One of the biggest challenges faced by the Council and the community is meeting the ever-increasing demand and higher expectations for adults' services. These are being tackled by a number of budget-related action plans, which include funding further efficiencies across the board, which will be achieved by service redesign, the review of eligibility criteria for adult services, agreeing shared services where possible and through developing preventative strategies to maintain old and young people alike within their families and communities thus avoiding expenses and undesirable residential care often outwith the City.
Within our schools, Aberdeen is facing a reduction in the children's population, and therefore the grant allocation from the Scottish Executive. There will be a refocus on budgets to ensure that resources are invested in schools and frontline services, and head teachers have been given resources to meet local demands at a local level.
Working together
I do hope that this provides a helpful overview of where we are at, and I would wish to take this opportunity to again thank you for your support. It is our continuing commitment to deal with challenges that we, you – as our partners, and our local community face as we continue to transform the City for the benefit of all now – and in the future – at a pace never before seen.
The budget release and speech can be accessed via: Council Budget 2007 - 2008
Councillor Kate Dean
Leader of Aberdeen City Council
12 February 2007
