Tuesday May 12th 2026
Mildothian Councillor Derek Milligan
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
A Midlothian councillors calls for the council to use £4m in reserves to fill ‘shameful’ cuts in social care have been voted against with Midlothian Council Leader accusing the motion’s proposal as a ‘politically natured attack’.
Labour’s councillor Milligan proposed today at a meeting of council that a highlighted £4 million ‘adrift from the IJB budget’ should be used to support Midlothian’s social care following a decline in services that included a cut in travelling time for care workers and Midlothian Community Hospital’s Loanesk ward being closed.
Voting on the motion today, Midlothian Council agreed to stick with the proposed amendment with votes concluding at 9 to 8.
Labelling the cuts as ‘shameful’ last week prior to the motion going to council, Milligan made claims that 170 people who have critical care in the county are on a waiting list.
At today’s meeting he added: “We have an elderly person with incontinence getting one shower a week, we have an elderly couple in their 90’s where one is having to help the other one go to the toilet and is basically carrying them.
“We see people right across the board who are crying out for care who urgently need it”.
He also highlighted that travelling time for care workers has been reduced from 15% to 10%, explaining that the only way he sees this working is by care workers ’simply reducing the amount of time with each client they are visiting’.
With £7m to £8m in council reserves and of that £2.581 earmarked to balance the budget, Milligan explained that this money could be diverted to sort these gaps in care, providing the example that £557,000 set aside for the community action team could potentially be used to help balance the more than £1 million rise in pupil transport costs.
The Council’s Finance Director, David Gladwin explained that of the £4 million, £2.5 million is the remaining element of the service concession retrospect which was earmarked to balance the budget in 2027/28 and the remaining money is part of this years budget.
Explaining that ‘we have a real problem in social care’ and there is ‘people right across the board who are crying out for care who urgently need it’, Milligan added that at an Integration Board Meeting (IJB) himself and Councillor Winchester did not accept the council’s offer, coming back with details that got out voted.
Milligan explained that at that meeting several people highlighted that ‘Midlothian isn’t worse than other places’, pointing out areas in Scotland with worse levels of care. Milligan added that ‘this is not an excuse’, explaining that ‘just because someone isn’t receiving care in Edinburgh, it doesn’t mean someone isn’t cared for right in Midlothian’.
Highlighting that the choices are affecting people extremely, he urged the council meeting to put their political parties aside and take the vote for additional money.
The motion was seconded by Councillor Imrie who explained: “It is a sad day for Midlothian that they aren’t going to look after people they should be. It is our duty as a Council to make sure that money is there.”
Moved by Council Leader Kelly Parry, she explained that she agreed with some of the points made but was ‘baffled to see them say that this should be put forward in some sort of cross partyway when you have asked me to call myself and vote for myself to be shameless, following from Milligan’s comments made last week.
Council Leader Kelly Parry added: “The political natured attack of your motion on such an important topic is actually really disappointing”, adding that she noticed the ‘timely’ mention of the issue on election polling day.
She also added: ‘The amendment put forward was about making sure there was something there that all councillors could get behind and to make sure they weren’t playing politics but if I could just give the labour group some advice and i dont know how many doors you guys knocked on over the election, clearly not enough, but what i heard from voters was that they want and rightly expect is for their politicians to be putting political differences aside and actually getting on with solutions.”
Stating that there is pressure across the whole council, not just social care, she explained that she doesn’t believe gaps in social care should be the burden of a Midlothian tax payer, highlighting the recent increase in council tax by 9%.
After the discussion, a vote was taken on the motion with the Labour and Conservative councillors voting for it and the SNP councillors voting aganinst.
See below the texts of the Labour party motion put forward at the meeting:
Council will be aware that there is great public anger and concern at the proposed seNice cuts to health and social care seNices being made by the Midlothian Integrated Joint Board.
The failure by both the Scottish Government and the Midlothian Council SNP administration to adequately fund care for those most desperately in need is shameful.
As a direct consequence of this failure, the IJB had to agree to:
– Close of the Loanesk Ward in Midlothian Community Hospital.
– Cut travel time to care workers which will simply mean less time with those needing care.
– Cut the level of care to some clients already receiving care at home.
– Cut care packages for adults with Learning Disabilities and reduce night-time support.
– Care packages that were previously delivered by two care workers will now be delivered by
one.
In addition, Midlothian already has around 170 people who have been assessed as being in critical need awaiting a care package. That list will now grow due to the lack of adequate funding.
If these cuts go ahead this will leave the most vulnerable people in our community without the care
they need.
Therefore, Council agrees to increase the offer to the IJB for the financial year 2026/2027 by an additional £4 million pounds revenue to avoid the need for many of these cuts and to help deliver care to those assessed as in critical need.
See below a video of the discussion at the council meeting:
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