Here is a list of all the CUTS being considered by West Dunbartonshire Council at their meeting at 4pm on Wednesday. Two Labour councillors resigned from the administration this week so there will be confusion and acrimony aplenty as decision are made in the chamber. This is a public meeting and the gallery should be open for it. Get in there – if they let you in that is – and make certain our public representatives (the councillors) know that you are watching them. There is an election for the Scottish Parliament on May 7 and your vote may depend on how the Council treats the Carers in the polling stations that day.
- Review of Clydebank Town Hall – Cut opening to either three days a week (saving £15k a year) or four days with shorter daily hours (saving £8k).
- Review of Contact Centre – Remove 1 full-time equivalent (FTE) from the nine-strong Customer Contact Centre team to save about £30k a year, increasing average call waiting times from 3 minutes to around 6 minutes and pushing some callers towards online contact.
- Full cost school meals – Increase the price of paid school meals from £3.19 to between £3.71 and £5.73 per meal to recover 25–100% of the current subsidy.
- Reduction in Performance and Strategy Team – Cut the business partner team by 1 FTE (around 25%), saving £25k.
- Reduction in West Dunbartonshire Leisure Trust (WDLT) management fee – Trim the leisure trust’s annual management fee by 1% to 5% and leave WDLT to absorb the cut through service changes, higher income or use of reserves, with a risk to leisure provision and the council’s duty to provide “adequate” facilities.
- Removal of events – Stop the Levengrove Park firework display, the Scottish Pipe Band Championships, or both, to save between £5k and £28k.
- Swimming lessons – Scrap the free eight-week P6/7 swimming block to save £14k a year.
- Early Start Clubs – End breakfast clubs in primaries from 2026/27, removing a service used by around 350 pupils and saving £102k.
- Charging for Instrumental Music Service tuition – Introduce charges of £5–£25 per hour for instrumental music, with low-income families exempt and savings of £13k–£100k by 2027/28.
- Closure/charging changes for out of school care (osc) – Either increase session fees at St Eunan’s and Linnvale OSC to reduce, remove subsidy (up to £29k saving) or close both services completely with risks for working families’ childcare and employment.
- Mainstream school transport – Tighten eligibility so provision is closer to or exactly at the statutory minimum, potentially saving up to £120k a year by 2028/29.
- Reduction in Instrumental Music Service staffing – End a fixed‑term tutor post to save £23k a year, reducing capacity for tuition.
- Secondary common senior phase timetable – Move all five secondary schools to a single senior phase model with a minimum class size of 12 and shared courses across schools, generating up to £354k a year and 5 FTE teacher reductions but narrowing local subject choice and clashing with commitments to maintain teacher numbers.
- Secondary school staffing (partner providers) – Cut around 7.8 FTE teachers (saving up to £552k) to reflect roughly 600 pupils who are out at college or partners part‑week.
- Senior phase transport (to other schools and colleges)– Save between £15k and £67k by switching taxi runs to in‑house minibuses and/or removing return journeys so pupils travel home by public transport.
- Reduce day and residential school budget – Cut the £5.684m budget for out‑of‑authority ASN placements by the equivalent of about five day or three residential places, saving up to £200k a year while relying on newly expanded in‑house specialist provision and accepting higher risks of dispute and tribunal.
- Reduce ELC management funding – Withdraw 0.2 FTE supply‑teacher management funding from six primary schools that already have a full‑time Principal Teacher of Early Years, saving £69k but potentially cutting management time and quality in early years settings.
- Reduction in temporary teaching posts – Remove five temporary teaching posts to save £345k a year and align staffing more closely to a falling roll.
- Roll‑related clerical allocation – Audit and then reduce clerical hours in schools where rolls have dropped, saving up to £90k.
- Cease rotation of temporary accommodation – Scrap plans to retire and replace some temporary homeless units, saving £10k a year but leaving around 27 properties used as temporary accommodation beyond the planned five‑year limit and risking neighbour complaints.
- Reduce CCTV team – Remove one or two CCTV operative posts to save £27k–£54k a year despite recent major investment in cameras, with less live monitoring, weaker crime and ASB prevention and reduced support for parking enforcement.
- Review leadership support and transfer to CAS – Merge the Leadership Support Team into Corporate Administrative Support and delete a supervisor/team‑leader post, saving £49k a year.
- Charges for Disclosure Scotland – Pass PVG and disclosure fees on to all applicants (saving £26k) or only staff above Grade 5 (saving £16k), bringing the council in line with many other employers but potentially deterring applicants.
- Reduction in corporate training budget – Cut the central training pot from £55k to £40k, saving £15k but limiting leadership programmes, digital upskilling and retraining support for displaced staff, with possible knock‑on costs in redundancy and workforce resilience.
- Review of external funding – Reduce or remove £645k of grants to local third‑sector bodies (including Clydebank Asbestos Group, Y Sort It, Antonine Sports Centre, WD CVS, Lomond and Clyde Care & Repair, Shopmobility and others).
- Review of office accommodation – Reconfigure staff between Aurora House, Clydebank Library and Carleith Primary offices to allow a saving on Aurora’s lease, delivering up to £50k a year but requiring staff moves and careful handling of workspace and morale issues.
- Elderly Welfare Grant – Scrap the £15 annual payment to over‑67s, with or without diverting half the money to external elderly charities, to save between £55k and £120k a year.
- Community council funding – Cut admin grants to community councils by 25–100%, saving £3.5k–£14k a year.
- National Fraud Initiative (NFI) Single Person Discount review – Create a new council tax post to chase up errors in single‑person discounts, using NFI data, at a cost that still yields a net £20k extra council tax income a year and some expected complaints from households losing the discount.
- Review Municipal Building – Market the Municipal Buildings for lease or shared use as part of the wider accommodation review, with an initial £16k saving rising to £65k.
- Review depot rental charges – Reprice or introduce internal rents for depots and strategic operational sites so property costs are fully recovered, producing a £75k saving.
- Council Tax on long‑term empty and second homes – Increase council tax for long‑term empty and second homes from 200% up to as high as 300%, generating between £56k and £225k extra income per year while further incentivising owners to bring empty stock back into use and inviting pushback from affected taxpayers.
- Closure/merger of bowling clubs – Retain just Whitecrook and Christie Park, merge veteran clubs and dispose of the remaining sites,.
- Street lighting timers – Invest about £300k in timers so street lights can be turned off for 2–3 hours overnight, leading to net savings of up to £126k a year, lower emissions and less light pollution but significant public concern about safety in darker streets.
- Working4U service reduction – Remove between 3 and 12 council‑funded FTE posts (saving £122k–£490k) from welfare rights, debt advice, adult learning and employability, on top of looming external funding cuts, which would sharply reduce support for residents in poverty or seeking work.
- Crematorium weekend operations – Stop Saturday cremations and weekend access to the Book of Remembrance, consolidating services into weekdays and saving £5k plus £20k of cost avoidance, with the risk families go elsewhere for weekend services and complain about reduced access.
- Reduction in street cleaning – Cut 2 FTE from street cleansing, saving £55k a year but reducing litter picking and bin emptying outside town centres and weakening flood resilience and winter response in some areas.
- Introduction of parking charging – Bring in pay‑and‑display charges in town‑centre car parks in Dumbarton, Clydebank, Alexandria and Balloch (up to £5 per day), with capital costs of around £150k and an eventual net income of about £216k a year, likely provoking resistance from commuters, staff and some traders.
- Reduce number of apprentices – Permanently delete five long‑vacant Roads and Greenspace apprenticeship posts, saving £115k a year without affecting current apprentices or service delivery, but cutting future training opportunities.
- Cease Christmas trees – Stop providing and lighting the three council‑funded town‑centre Christmas trees in Dumbarton, Clydebank and Balloch to save £15k a year, at the risk of a visible and unpopular reduction in civic festive activity.
- Reduce trunk road sweeping – Scale back litter picking and sweeping on the A82 trunk road to save £50k a year, accepting more visible rubbish on a key gateway route, possible flooding if drains clog and potential challenge from Transport Scotland.
- Purchase vehicles to replace hire cars – Spend £300k capital to buy 10 vehicles for Roads, Grounds and caretaking instead of hiring, cutting annual running costs from £74k to £37k and delivering a net £37k saving once borrowing costs are covered.
- Cease supply of dog waste bags – End the free distribution of around 5 million dog poo bags a year to save £25k, knowing residents may fear or report increased dog fouling and criticise the council for withdrawing a long‑standing universal freebie.
The readership of The Dumbarton Democrat has shot up in recent weeks to just over 20,000 although it fluctuates from day to day. Bill Heaney, Editor