Budget blog focusses on how to generate income to pay for Council services

The second topic on the Council’s Budget Blog goes live on Thursday 12 June - how can we generate income to pay for services? The blog is available from the home page of The Highland Council website http://www.highland.gov.uk/

The first topic focussed on how we could reduce some services but the Council is now asking for comments on how to generate income to pay for services.

Suggestions include the Council delivering services to other organisations, for example, providing HR services to a local business. The blog also asks if franchises should be allowed to open in Council buildings, such as coffee or sandwich shops.

The blog also focusses on renewable energy, asking about support for renewable schemes such as wind or solar power. There is also a suggestion of introducing Energy from Waste plants which would generate power using rubbish. The income from these renewable schemes could then be used to maintain other Council services. The public are also encouraged to offer other suggestions on how the Council could generate income.

The Council’s Budget Leader Councillor Maxine Smith said: “We have had a great response to our first topic and some very interesting points have been raised. I understand that many people do not want to see Council services reducing and so this topic opens the discussion on how we can generate income to try and maintain some services.

“I’m interested to hear the public’s views on the suggestions we make in the blog, and also to hear their ideas on how we can generate further income.”

The Budget Consultation aims to understand the public’s priorities as the Council aims to make savings of £63.7m over the next 4 years. Budget Forums have been taking place across Highland over the last three weeks and the final three will be in Nairn Court House (Thursday 12 June), Caol Community Centre (Monday 16 June) and Glen Urquhart High School (Wednesday 18 June).

The next topics in the Budget Blog will consider how we should provide our services, including working more with voluntary groups and public sector partners, how we can organise our customer service provision (Service Points) and who should provide our services.

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