CONCERNS have been voiced over the “exceptional” amount of slippage in the council’s capital plan.

According to papers, the original 2021/22 budget for capital expenditure was £87 million.

The current approved budget now stands at £84 million – a slippage of £3 million.

But Tweeddale East councillor Stuart Bell told a meeting of the audit and scrutiny committee on Monday (November 22) that the total slippage is actually around £19 million.

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“There was £16 million moved in from last year and therefore the total slippage in the first six months of this year is £19 million,” said Mr Bell, of the SNP. “Now we used to get worked up about £3 million of slippage on a £25 million capital budget eight years ago. We’re seeing a £19 million slippage on a £87 million capital budget with an indication in the executive report that was reviewed last week (see page 13) that there might be further slippage in the course of this year.”

Addressing SBC’s chief financial officer, David Robertson, he said: “We have got an exceptional amount of slippage, what exceptional action is being taken to get to grips with a reasonable forecast on the slippage and to minimise it?”

Mr Robertson moved to reassure members about the “very complicated and challenging picture around the capital plan” but added that workload pressures are “very, very significant”.

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“You have got an exceptionally large capital programme and you also have an exceptional amount of circumstances underpinning the capital plan,” he said. “Slippage has been an ongoing challenge for a number of years for the council [but] you have to remember that we are just through an unprecedented economic lockdown.

“We’re now seeing the impacts of some of that in terms of the availability of labour and materials which has had an impact on the length and breadth of the UK, not just in the Borders.

“Despite that we’ve continued to deliver on a huge number of capital projects and the work that has gone on in areas like Hawick with the flood protection scheme has also been quite exceptional. Officers are continuing to deliver the vastly complicated and huge capital programme that you have signed up to as quickly as possible.”