In its budget announced today (Thursday 14 February) North Lanarkshire Council is investing an extra £67 million to make North Lanarkshire a stronger, healthier and more caring place for everyone – young people, families and older people.

The budget totals over £751 million, and includes a growth package of £24.2 million and additional capital growth for major investment projects of £43.2 million – all of which goes directly to provide and improve important services for residents throughout their lives. The budget will also deliver a freeze on council tax levels, in line with the Scottish Government's proposals to all Scottish local authorities, which means that the Band D council tax level for 2008/09 will remain at £1,098 – the lowest in the west of Scotland.

An important part of the growth package within the budget is an additional £5.29 million to boost care services to support vulnerable people to live independently – including more home support services for older people, assistance for families of children and adults with a disability, and more day care for people affected by dementia.

Other parts of the growth package will have a positive impact across all council services. An above inflation increase of 5% will be made to key voluntary sector agencies, such as Citizens' Advice Bureaux and neighbourhood centre projects, to support the services they offer to local people as well as an investment of £4.25 million to create a repairs and renewal fund to improve and upgrade council facilities.

Council Leader Jim McCabe said today: "This budget delivers local services for local people, when and how they need them. There's something for everyone and we're responding to the priorities identified by local people themselves in our Residents' Survey. We are taking care of people when they need an extra helping hand because of illness, age or disability. We are giving our children and young people the best opportunities to get a positive start in life and giving practical help to families. And we are making our local environment a cleaner and safer place for everyone to live and work.

"The budget agreed today shows that we are continuing to deliver on our promise to put Service and People First in North Lanarkshire."

What it means for young people

• Improving the teaching and learning environment within our schools and community facilities as part of the council's £250 million Schools and Centres 21 programme
• A £808,000 boost to give around 60 young people with special needs tailored support packages they require as they leave school and move into adulthood. About 30 require ongoing and higher levels of support such as assisted personal care and supported living providers. This is part of the council's overall Supported Living Package with an annual value of over £30 million
• With investment of £430,000 a new fitness and exercise programme for 12 to 16 year olds will be introduced to improve their health and wellbeing, to improve sports participation and help prepare talented athletes for major events
• A capital boost of £1.8 million to upgrade our sports pitches to grass or high quality synthetic surfaces
• £1 million to be set aside to support the hosting of the 2011 International Children's Games, if Lanarkshire's bid is successful

What it means for families

• School meal prices will be frozen on an ongoing basis from this year to help encourage more pupils to benefit from healthy menus as a result of a £280,000 annual funding boost, which brings the total spend on schools meals to over £18 million for 2008/09. The cashless payment service will be rolled out to all schools over the next three years.
• Over 36,500 new books and other items in libraries thanks to an extra £300,000 to our book fund
• A £10 increase in footwear and clothing grants through an additional investment of £90,000 each year
• £500,000 to deliver a better support service for families of children with a disability. To help these families live as normal a life as possible, our experienced family support workers will provide a 24/7 service to support around 190 families through community-based activity, respite breaks for carers and mutual support networks. This more than doubles the existing budget to £1.1 million
• An annual investment of £200,000 will improve safety measures on school transport by making the provision of seatbelts in school buses a requirement for contractors and support the phasing out of double-decker buses being used on school runs

What it means for older people

• A regular investment of £300,000, to be added to the £2.4 million spent on maintaining minimum waiting times for equipment and support for vulnerable people to live independently
• More specialist day care services for the increasing number of people over 50 with dementia with an extra investment of £250,000. This adds to a total of around £9 million spent on day care centres for elderly adults with learning disabilities and mental health problems
• £750,000 will be directed at meeting the demand for more home support services and nursing home places for older people – increasing the total investment in these services each year to £49 million

What it means for the environment

• Environmental services introduced a new fleet of eight special uplift vehicles and crews in 2007/2008 to ensure all service requests are met within five days. Average waiting time has dropped from 15 – 30 days to just 3.25 days as a result.  Annual investment of £530,000 from this year's budget will maintain these crews and ensure that this level of service delivery continues and increase the annual spend to £1.3 million
• The council's Streetsmart campaign, which aims to provide cleaner streets and well-maintained parklands and open spaces, will benefit from a £700,000 investment in 2008/2009. This will allow for the continued improvement of services like trunk road cleaning, night-time litter picking and street sweeping with a total annual spend of £1.1 million
• A one-off growth investment of £2.4 million along with an annual increase of almost £1.3 million will bring the total investment in maintaining our roads and paths, installing new lighting and refurbishing signs across North Lanarkshire to over £16 million
• Total investment of £2.2 million will help to develop improvements in the way we collect and manage household waste, by supporting the continued development of the Lanarkshire Waste Management Project, which aims to find more sustainable methods of waste disposal. It will also help to upgrade existing waste stations and increase recycling provision with new centres in the northern corridor, Shotts, Airdrie and Cleland that will help us meet the 40% target set by the Scottish Government by 2010, reducing overall costs in the medium to long term.

Councillor Bob Burrows, Vice-Convener of the Finance and Customer Services Committee, said:

"While we welcome the agreement with the Scottish Government on budgets for the next financial year, the settlement for local authorities remains very tight. Despite this, North Lanarkshire Council has been able to deliver real growth in our budget because of our strong record of sound financial management and a commitment to making significant efficiency savings. The revenue budget agreed today includes a £24.2 million growth package, of which over £10 million comes from efficiency savings made by identifying ways to operate better but not compromising on the quality of services for residents.

"We are proud of our record on delivering the services that residents and communities need and want, while keeping the cost to taxpayers to a minimum and constantly improving the way we work and the quality of services."

Although council tax will not increase in the year ahead, residents will see an increase in their overall bill as a result of the increase in water rates announced by Scottish Water.

Ends

Notes to editors

The council's total growth package of £67.415 million includes

• revenue growth (recurring) - £13.874 million
• revenue growth (one-off) - £10.341 million
• capital growth - £43.2 million

The council's £751.17 million revenue budget for 2008/09 is made up from:

• government grant - £628.300 million
• additional government income, if council tax level is frozen - £3.671 million
• income from council tax (with 0% increase) - £119.206 million

(The revenue budget for last year (2007/08) was £693.7 million, including a growth package of almost £85 million.)

At a meeting of the Housing and Social Work Committee on 7 February, the council maintained its rent increase at 3.5% for the third consecutive year. The average rent level in North Lanarkshire is £47.23 – 2% below the national average of £48.19.