Councillor condemns ‘wasteful council’

Fife councillor Mark Hood as condemned Fife Councils SNP / Lib Dem administration for wasting tax payers money while at the same pushing through millions of pounds in service cuts.  The councillors comments came in relation to a report that went to Fife Councils Standards and Audit Committee last month that outlined over £1.7m [1,2,3] of avoidable costs incurred by the council over the past year.

The Fife Labour Finance Spokesperson commented:

‘At these difficult times for the finances of families in Fife it is shameful that tax payers money is being squandered in this fashion. This one report highlights three instances where costs have been unnecessarily incurred and tax payers money lost because the appropriate procedures where not followed.

‘The SNP / Lib Dem councillors like to describe Fife Council as a ‘top performing council’ but at the same time the council are paying over £606k [2] refitting a building that they have leased for only 45 months. Broken down over the period of the lease the tax payers are paying nearly £13.5k a month and that is not including the rent for the building.

‘I am sure that Fifers will share my anger when they think of how wasteful this council is being while at the same time cutting services that are so valuable to the people of Fife. To save £1.25m [4], SNP and Lib Dem administration decided to cut 28 teaching assistants posts in Fife Primary Schools. If the administration had shown stronger leadership and put a stop to this waste we would be protecting these important jobs and ensuring services like education were protected.’

The councillor for Lochgelly and Cardenden concluded:

‘The difference between Fife Labour and the current SNP/Lib Dem administration running Fife Council is that we would be focusing on cutting waste and protecting services where as they seem willing accept this level of waste and cut services.’