The news comes as the council agreed its Revenue Budget for next year (2023/24) which will see £525 million being invested in local services and support for local people, families and communities.

The Revenue Budget covers the council’s day-to-day expenditure and includes the cost of running services. That includes schools, social care, operational services - such as waste, roads and parks, winter and grounds maintenance - and a raft of other essential functions.

A total of 80% of the council’s total Revenue Budget is funded from Scottish Government grant with the remaining 20% being generated via Council Tax.

The 5.8% council tax increase will generate income of £5.431m that will be spent on delivering, protecting and improving local services in West Lothian and will help to prevent a number of proposed service savings measures being implemented. There are discounts and exemptions in place to reduce Council Tax for the most vulnerable in society, including the Council Tax Reduction Scheme.

Approximately 80% of the council’s total revenue budget will be spent on three priority areas, Education, Social Care and Operational Services.

Education will continue to see the largest single investment with £218.5m being spent next year. Over the last five-years the council has continued to improve literacy and numeracy for young people and West Lothian has had 11 successive years of improvement in exam performance.

Over £131m will be invested in Social Policy (with the majority of the funding delegated to the Integration Joint Board) which includes social work, care at home, care for vulnerable people and care homes.

Nearly £62.1m will be spent in Operational Services - which covers many vital local services such as roads, waste disposal, parks, maintenance of open spaces, flood prevention, community transport, subsidies for public transport, recycling centres and street cleansing/facilities management, which includes janitorial, cleaning and catering staff.
The council has also agreed a five-year revenue budget strategy and a detailed revenue budget for the next three-years which includes savings measures that will allow the council to balance its budget.

Leader of West Lothian Council, Councillor Lawrence Fitzpatrick, said: “The council will continue to provide a huge range of quality services and our investment in local services will benefit every single resident in West Lothian.”

“West Lothian has experienced sustained cuts to our funding since 2007 and we have had to make savings of £150m. We are now faced with further reductions of over £43m and that means some difficult decisions are unavoidable.

“However, it is our priority to support people who are in greatest need, which is why we have targeted support across a wide range of measures that will help people through difficult times.”

Other areas of council investment include:

• £580,000 of additional funding for Additional Support Needs (ASN) transport
• Investment to meet an increase in the cost of complex care for a rapidly growing elderly population
• Additional welfare and financial support
• Support for looked after children and vulnerable adults
• Significant investment to support growth and job creation
• Investment to tackle poverty
• Additional prevention work to tackle homelessness.