£9m savings achieved by council

The council has made £9m of efficiency savings in the past year

Dumfries and Galloway Council has made more than £9m of efficiency savings over the past year.

The former Scottish Executive set out targets for local authorities across the country in 2004 under its Efficient Government Plan.

Dumfries and Galloway was expected to save a total of £3.5m in the financial year 2007/08.

The authority also set its own savings target of an additional £600,000 but exceeded the combined total by £5m.

One of the biggest contributions to the overall savings came from the sale of surplus assets.

That brought in more than £2.5m.

A reduction in staffing levels also trimmed more than £1m from costs.

The council claims that most of the measures taken have had no adverse effect on services to the public.

The work to reduce costs is set to continue in the year ahead.

Efficiency savings of some £4.7m have been identified for the year 2008/09.