Councillors clash over u-turn on £150k spending cuts

Councillors Mark McDonald and Lois Speed disagreed on the move.

Angus councillors have backed a bid to reverse spending cuts earmarked for the local authority’s economic development department.

The council had planned on slashing the department’s budget by £150,000, part of the “change programme”, which aims to deliver £12 million of savings by 2027.

However, a U-turn on the proposed cuts was urged by councillor Mark McDonald at a recent policy and resources committee meeting.

This, he said, was needed to boost the region’s status on Scotland’s economic development league.

“We’re currently 29th out of 32 authorities in terms of delivering investment”, he said.

“We’ve got a renewables boom coming from offshore and all we hear about is Aberdeen – we don’t hear about Angus. We’ve got a cracking port, we’ve got cracking people and we’ve got the services here.”

However, the U-turn did not have the unanimous backing of the committee, with Independent councillor Louis Speed challenging the decision.

She said: “I can absolutely see the merits in terms of the economic development team and what can be achieved here. But I have concerns about supporting this in isolation when we’re unclear on the knock-on implications on other equally important parts of our business and services we provide, particularly to our most vulnerable.”

The committee agreed that any financial impact should be met through the council’s uncommitted general reserves fund.