Budget Consultation 2026-27
Overview
The Council delivers a wide range of essential services that affect daily life in our area - including education, social care, waste collection, roads, planning, leisure, housing, libraries, licensing and many more.
In 2025-26 our total allocated budget was just over £376 million.
Much of our total budget spend is on staff costs, with almost 50% being allocated to pay our 4936 employees. These are the people who deliver your essential services and include teaching staff, who make up 24% of our workforce and social care workers who represent over 19% of our workforce.
As local authorities across Scotland continue to face increasing financial constraints, balancing the budget each year is becoming extremely challenging and the Council faces some difficult choices in the years ahead.
The Budget Consultation 2026-27 is now closed. Your choices will help inform the Council budget decisions in February 2026.
Our funding
Did you know that the Council is funded from two main sources?
These are:
- Council Tax, which amounts to 20% of our total funds
and
- A block grant from the Scottish Government, which makes up 80% of our overall budget.
Like all local authorities, we are unable to control the amount of funding that comes from the Scottish Government. This funding is strongly influenced by national policy and commitments, meaning that an increasing portion of our funding is ring-fenced to drive national policy initiatives, including 'protection' of education and health and social care services.
For 2026-27 we won't know what our block grant from the Scottish Government will be until mid-January 2026 which will leave only a limited amount of time to consider some difficult choices before we have to set our budget for next year in February 2026.
Our financial challenges
South Ayrshire Council, like all local authorities, is currently managing the most challenging financial circumstances it has ever faced due to a period of high inflation and wider economic challenges. resulting in 'real terms' reductions in our funding while experiencing increased demand for our services. The Council, our staff and partners in the South Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership have transformed and redesigned services to save nearly £72 million over the last 11 years.
Making these savings has been necessary to ensure the continuing financial viability of the Council. Delivering such savings has been a significant achievement and has happened despite the disruption caused by the pandemic and a significant cost of living crisis that has affected everyone.
For 2026-27 we estimate that our funding shortfall, or 'gap', will be around £15.3 million, before any decision is made on what level of Council Tax increase should be added to last year's rates. We're legally required to balance our budget which means that we must increase our income or reduce our costs through savings.
