Vernal Comments on Aberdeenshire Underspend

Commenting on today's meeting of Aberdeenshire Council, which considered a Revenue Budget Monitoring report and the council's Unaudited Statement of Accounts, SNP Shadow Council Leader Cllr Hamish Vernal said:

“I acknowledge the work which council officials have put into preparing these accounts. While the forecasting is much improved on last year, the hard fact is that for the second year running, over £25 million pounds of Aberdeenshire taxpayers' money has once again not been able to be spent as was intended.

“People will be asking why, when the Council has underspent by £51m on core services over the past two years, so many recent painful budget cuts have been thought necessary. The present political administration clearly has some way to go before it can say it has properly got to grips with Aberdeenshire's chronic underspends.”