In doing so, the local authority has managed to increase investment in its road network from £2m to £10m and pledged to invest an additional £1.2m for health and social care, taking the total to £82m in 2025-26.

As well as funding for the full range of council services, budget decisions include:

• Boosting the area’s future resilience with £2.9m for severe weather related costs (to include £2m funded from the council’s Priorities Investment Fund)
• £200,000 from the Priorities Investment Fund to assist in the creation of a business case for the future development of leisure facilities in Dunoon.
• Freezing school meal charges and providing £60,000 to foodbanks across Argyll and Bute and its islands to help those in need with cost of living demands (£5,000 each to 12 foodbanks)
• Freezing council-run ferry charges at 2024/25 levels

The budget also provides support for leisure, tourism, and regeneration initiatives including:

• Live Argyll (leisure and library services) – maintain funding for 2025/6 at £3.1m
• CHARTS (Culture, Heritage and Arts)- £75,000
• Argyll and the Isles Tourism Co-operative - £75,000
• Mactaggart Leisure Centre, Islay - £30,000
• Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park - £10,000
• Clipper Round the World Race contribution to hosting fee - £20,000
• Community Sports payments for shinty and rugby development in 2025/26 - £20,000

Setting the budget included the council delivering another £2.1m of management and operational savings, and losing four FTE (full time equivalent) posts through restructuring.

Councillor Jim Lynch, leader of the council, said: “Setting the council’s budget has been extremely difficult. We all use council services every day, but every year council budgets face multi-million pound gaps. Decisions made today protect the council services we all rely on from drastic budget cuts, and make investment possible in services that we know matter to local people.

“To do that, we have taken the tough decision to raise council tax this year by 9.9%. This has taken much thought and, quite frankly, soul-searching. As we have considered this, we have kept in mind the key question - in doing this, where and how are we giving back to communities?

“Here are just some examples of how decisions today will be transformed into keeping council services and support available for our communities.

“Our rural communities depend on our school and public transport services. These contracts are increased by £1.7m between this year and last year’s, a cost we couldn’t avoid – that’s the equivalent of nearly 3% of council tax.

“There’s a £0.5m increase in support for transport for young people with additional support needs – equating to nearly 1% of council tax. Protecting and maintaining the buildings and IT equipment that our school pupils use is worth around £655,000, or 1% of council tax.

“The costs of delivering our services are already higher than many other local authorities given our geography – and on top of that we, like everyone else, have higher bills to pay and costs to absorb. Our inflation costs this year are around £2.2m – that’s the equivalent of 3.5% of council tax.

“Today’s budget also makes it possible to keep investment going in areas people tell us matter to them.

“We have increased investment in our road network from £2m to £10m; and we have set aside nearly £3m for storm recovery support, in case our communities need this again from their council. Combined, this investment is the equivalent of over one percent of council tax income. Our additional £1.2m for health and social care – supporting the most vulnerable in our communities – equates to around two percent of council tax income.

“Keeping council tax lower would have meant cuts to services that people value – taking services away from their communities. Today’s budget keeps vital services and support there for our youngest to our oldest residents.”

Councillor Ross Moreland, policy lead for finance and commercial services, said: “We do a lot of work to secure funding for Argyll and Bute and make it stretch as far as possible. Nationally we work with other councils to stand up for more council funding. Locally we continue to change how council services work to save money. But unfortunately budget gaps are just too big and make council tax vital for the services people want from their council.

“Today’s decisions mean we can provide cost of living support for those most in need, and invest in what we know matters to communities and benefits their day-to-day lives.”