Budget speech by council leader Willie Innes (Lab) 
AS I PRESENT the fifth and final budget of this administration, I think it is appropriate to remind council of the journey we have been on.
The council we inherited from the SNP in 2012 was very different to the one we see today. It was a council in a mess, with no financial strategy, no plan and no direction.
Capital spending was out of control as the SNP tried to buy another term in office, regardless of the impact on services and jobs.
Despite facing the worst financial position ever experienced by this council, we developed a strategy to firstly bring the council’s finances under control, then take it forward in a managed way, protecting the services people rely on and the staff delivering those services.
While carefully replacing the reserves squandered by the SNP, we introduced the living wage and halted the SNP’s privatisation of our homecare services. We also stopped their plan to transfer our education services to Midlothian.
We promised to protect and develop the local economy and that is exactly what we did, creating much-needed office space and industrial units, more apprenticeships and graduate placements; we also supported the tourism sector with a range of initiatives.
I could go on and on – my cabinet colleagues will develop those themes – but my main point is that even in the worst of times, you can protect communities if you care enough and put them before party political allegiance.
The budget before us today is another very difficult one, because while the Scottish Government has received £418 million more from Westminster, they decided to cut local government by £350 million.
To get their budget through Holyrood, they accepted an amendment from the Greens which reduced the cut to £220 million, but this will still have a significant impact on East Lothian.
For the second year in a row, even though their budget has been increased, the SNP Government has given East Lothian a cash cut which will inevitably affect services. Given this is an election year, some administrations would have presented a budget with one eye on the election; we have resisted that temptation, because we have come too far and worked too hard to restore the council’s finances to do so.
I for one could not look our staff (who have worked so hard in the most difficult of times) in the eye, if we had squandered the reserves and cut jobs for an electoral advantage.
So in this budget we have continued with the succesful strategy that has been endorsed by all our external inspectors; in contrast to the SNP opposition, we are using the minimum reserves possible to protect services and jobs.
The council has two very different budgets to consider today: one follows a proven strategy that has successfully turned around the council’s finnances, protected vital services local people depend on and the staff who deliver those services.
The SNP’s budget has been constructed for one reason and one reason alone: it is a budget that has both eyes on the election.
To be fair to the SNP, they have made no attempt to disguise the fact they are trying to buy their way back into power.
Both their revenue and capital budgets are littered with sweetners for the electorate, regardless of the effect it will have in future years.
They unashamedly give the game away, as most of their sweeteners in their budget appear only in the first and second years, only to disappear without a trace once the election is out of the way.
You could be forgiven for just shaking your head and saying “it’s par for the course for the unscrupulous Councillor Currie”, except for the fact that what he is proposing for adult wellbeing is unforgivable.
For some time he has been criticising the administration for underfunding adult wellbeing – only last week in this very chamber he claimed that he would be rectifying the funding position in his budget.
But the SNP budget tries to complicate the matter and confuse the public.
In year one, Councillor Currie has put £2 million extra into the service, but also cuts £1.5 million in the same year. In year two, he then removes the extra £2 million and cuts another £1 million.
Over the three-year period, far from putting more money in this hard-pressed service, the SNP are actually committing almost £1 million less than this administration. “Boom and bust, feast and famine”, spring to mind.
So once more he has been asked the question, and been found wanting.
So council has a clear choice before it: a budget that continues with a proven, succesful strategy that protects services and jobs, safeguards the local economy, making East Lothian the best it can be, for all the people who live and work here; against a budget that has been constructed soley to advance the ambitions of a political party, regardless of the consequences for East Lothian residents.