COUNCIL officers would be given free rein over cuts to council services if a budget proposed by East Lothian Council’s Labour administration is approved, it has been claimed.

The minority administration’s draft budget proposals, backed by the council’s cabinet on Tuesday, include over £3million of undisclosed cuts.

But opposition group leaders have said that they cannot support a budget which does not clearly identify where the savings will be made, as they accused the administration of handing the final decision on cuts to council officers.

The Labour administration is under pressure to approve a budget by February 13 to meet statutory time limits for setting council tax and council house rent for the coming financial year.

However, they will not know the final settlement they will receive from the Scottish Government until Holyrood approves its budget on February 22.

A draft Scottish Government proposal outlined a cut of £2.04million in funding for East Lothian, making it the fourth worst settlement for a local authority in Scotland.

The council is hoping that that decision will be reversed as pressure is put on the Government to give more money back to local authorities.

Jim Lamond, the council’s chief financial officer, said the local authority faced a £6.5 million shortfall in its budget for the coming year.

The administration budget plan sets out where savings will have to be made if the funding is not recovered but only refers to the cuts as “service reductions” or “service reviews” and does not detail where the axe will specifically fall.

At the cabinet meeting in Haddington Town House on Tuesday, Councillor Stuart Currie asked what would happen if the budget plan, was approved.

Mr Lamond said council officers would add in details of the cuts required and bring it back to full council for approval at their next meeting on February 27.

But he admitted it was not his preferred option.

He said: “These are significant cash targets and I would have been looking for more detail. It makes me nervous.”

However Mr Currie said the SNP group could not support the budget proposed by the administration in its current form.

He said: “There is no way we are going to support giving a blank cheque to council officer.”

And Councillor Brian Small, opposition leader (Conservatives), said more details would have to be in the budget before they could consider supporting it.

He said: “We are not happy to hand that decision over to officers, these are decisions we have been elected to make.”

All parties were presented with a range of budget options from council officers ahead of drawing up the financial plans for the next three years.

Some of those options were put out to public consultation late last year under a document entitled ‘Hard Choices’ and included town centre parking charges, closing a rural school with less than 50 per cent capacity and imposing limits on home to school travel.

Other options which are understood to be put forward by council officers include:

– Scrapping CCTV coverage in towns and open spaces

– Closing day centre or lunch clubs

– Charging for transport to centres and lunch clubs

– Cutting funds given to area partnerships and headteachers under the delegated school management service

– Charging bowling clubs for maintenance

Mr Small called for the budget decision to be delayed until the February 27 council meeting to allow for the final Scottish Government settlement to be confirmed.

Last year the local authority received a reduction in cuts by around £2 million and it is hoped they will receive at least that again.

The opposition leader asked for the council tax setting decision, which is universally agreed at a three per cent rise, to be taken separately at the February 13 meeting.

Mr Lamond told Cabinet: “I feel council tax and the budget are pretty much joined at the hip.” However he admitted it was possible to make the decisions separately.

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Small said: “The council tax could be agreed seperately to allow the council to meet its statutory duty and the budget decision delayed.

We cannot make a decision if we do not have all the facts.”

His view was backed by Mr Currie who said: “The council tax rate could be agred and we could come back five days after the Scottish Government announcement to discuss the budget.

“We cannot have a situation where we have given the go ahead to cuts which turn out to be unnecessary and we have not agreed.”

Acting council leader Councillor Norman Hampshire said the budget had been the most difficult he had encountered in his years as a serving councillor.

He said: “The difficulty is that we are still awaiting a final settlement figure from the Scottish Government therefore it is really difficult for us to bring forward recutions and we do not want to do that.

“This is us putting all our cards on the table so everyone is aware where we are going. The way forward is for the two opposition leaders to have discussions with their groups, come up with ideas which are declared competent and then we will consider them.

“We know the budget cannot go forward alone I would like the support of both groups but if that is not possible will take support from one of them.”

A spokesperson for East Lothian Council stressed any budget drawn up after February 13 would have to come back to the full council or approval.

He said: “In the event of further budget decisions being required after this date, following finalisation of the Scottish Government’s funding settlement, it would be necessary for proposals to be presented to and agreed by a vote at a meeting of the council.”