Highland Council faces £39.2m budget gap over next three years

High­land Coun­cil’s longer term budget gap forecast has increased almost eight-fold since March.

The projected black hole for the next three years has grown from £5m to £39.2m.

The local authority’s finance chiefs say “sig­ni­fic­ant extra sav­ings” will be needed to balance the books.

Opposition group leader, Liberal Democrat Alasdair Christie described it as the worst financial forecast in his 17 years’ service as a councillor.

He said: “There’s nothing easy left to make a saving on. All the transformation projects have been done, so we’re left with real hard, difficult decisions now for next year.”

For the SNP-led administration, Councillor Paul Oldham was more optimistic.

He said: “We will get through it. Ideally, we’ll get through it without raiding reserves, which is the big trick.”

Council officials say they have taken a “pro­act­ive and mul­ti­year approach”, adding that Audit Scot­land had com­men­ted that the coun­cil had “effect­ive and appro­pri­ate fin­an­cial man­age­ment arrange­ments in place”.

The 2027-30 projection, discussed at a meeting of the full council in Inverness on Thursday, has taken world events into consideration including the Middle East conflict which has res­ul­ted in higher interest rates.

The report does not detail spe­cific “savings” but administration leaders insist there will be no redundancies – compulsory or voluntary.

Mr Christie, however, warned of a “dev­ast­at­ing impact on ser­vices” that, he said, would inevitably impact the most vulnerable people in Highland.

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