Tuesday October 14th 2025
West Lothian Council headquarters
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Stuart Sommerville
Concern have been raised that the public won’t have enough time to respond to a consultation on West Lothian Council cuts of £23 million.
The council will publish its proposals to kick start the consultation this Thursday, just a day before the October school holidays.
The consultation is expected ti run for just four weeks – prompting fears from both Lib Dem councillor Sally Pattle and the SNP group that the tight timescale might affect answers to crucial questions on the savings plan.
Dr Elaine Cook, Interim Depute Chief Executive (Corporate, Operational and Housing) told a meeting of the council’s Executive that she was confident “tried and tested” methods would deliver adequate responses.
The council will unveil the officer-led proposals on Thursday as it works up a budget for next February. Without extra grant aid from the Scottish Government the council faces a £23m shortfall over the next two years and will have to make further cuts in non-statutory services.
Councillor Pattle said: “The consultation starts Thursday – schools go on half term holiday on Friday for ten days. That’s pretty much half the consultation time you have lost.”
She asked whether there was scope to expand beyond the planned month given that the holidays could mean large numbers of the people the council wants to hear from could be out of the picture for most of the period.
SNP group leader Councillor Janet Campbell asked: “Are we doing enough to ensure that under represented individuals such as those in receipt of social care, and carers, can take part?”
Dr Cook told councillors the approach “builds on the success of previous consultation exercises.”
Claire Stewart, the council’s Community Wealth Building Manager outlined work done to contact under represented groups and individuals as well as plans to consult on the ground in areas of high deprivation to ensure the hard to reach groups would be able to comment.
She added: “We have been working for quite a while to identify under-represented groups that will need additional supported. These are groups that we’ll be offering support to we’ll be in deprived areas speaking to residents, and we have identified individuals we want to support to complete the consultation.”
Councillor Pauline Stafford, the SNP depute group leader maintained that the consultation time was tight, as was the time left for councillors to absorb the findings of the consultation from early January in the run up to the budget at the end of February.
She reminded the meeting that a recent audit said the council had to do more to “ensure and clearly document how engagement with communities including vulnerable groups has informed changes.”
She added: “We need to be able to show people we are not just consulting them but we are actually listening to them.”
The paper before the council promised extensive coverage of the consultation through the council’s webpages, and public engagement through social media. The use of QR codes as well as paper engagement with all age groups and through all council services including community and school centres.
The consultation runs from this Thursday, 16 October, to Sunday, 16 November. Results of the third phases of the public consultation will be collated throughout December and presented to the first Executive of the New Year on 13 January.
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