Council budget consultation was a ‘farce’

‘FARCICAL’ and ‘tokenism’ were the words used by Moffat residents to describe Dumfries and Galloway Council’s recent budget consultation. Running from October 17 to November 23, the five-week long consultation invited residents to consider a range of budget savings and income-generation options, and provide feedback, to help the council find £35 million through savings and income generation over the next three years. However, it proved to be a hot topic at Tuesday’s meeting of Moffat and District Community Council (MDCC), where member of the public Anne Gibbard said: “I think it was a farce, there was absolutely no publicity whatsoever to say that it was on, I would not have known it was on if I hadn’t come to the Tweed trail meeting and it told me to have my say. “But anybody I have asked didn’t know that this budget review was on, so it is a token budget review asking for our opinions.” Her sentiments were echoed by fellow resident Mick Barker, who dubbed the whole exercise as ‘unfortunate and inappropriate’, adding: “I looked at what the prospects of the council were and realised we were only being asked to choose between a series of unacceptable, short term, salami slicing cuts. “The biggest cost for the council is people but there was nothing asking what should we do to reduce absenteeism and make sure that training gets a high level of output. “You can’t fix the levels of significant changes needed with a short-term budget so the fact that they’re doing a budget consultation in November on how to make cuts in February, personally I thought it was absolutely farcical. “Choosing between unfortunate and inappropriate bad choices, it’s like Sophie’s choice, it’s an excuse and it’s tokenism.”