Midlothian: Meeting the challenge
Like every other council, we are facing tough choices in tough times.
We need to save at least £25m over the next 3 to 4 years, given the scale of expected cuts.
We're going to lose £1 for every £7 we currently spend on services for you.
As our graphic shows, the gap between our income and spending will drop by an estimated £19.9m million by 2014. At the same time, costs to pay for responsibilities such as our ageing population are ever increasing. As a result, we need to save at least £25 million over the next 3 years.
Every service provided by the Council to support community life is currently being examined - and will remain under scrutiny in years to come. 
Details of services provided by the council can be found in these documents:
What we're already doing
You may already know that we've cut the number of managers in the council by 62, saving more than £3m.
We have also introduced a staff release scheme and are working in partnership with staff and unions to keep compulsory redundancies to a minimum.
What's next? 
The key process is confirming what the Council's priorities are.
As well as giving residents the chance to have their say, elected members are working with senior officers to confirm what we will continue to invest in, what we will take some savings from and what we are going to stop doing.
There will be really hard choices in the years to come. We are faced with an ever-diminishing pot of income to pay for ever-increasing responsibilities such as our ageing population. While we will do our best to consult the public, at the end of the day there will be some services that the public expect or want that we will not be able to afford.
Councillor Derek Milligan, leader, Midlothian Council
Midlothian has a good track record of making savings while still achieving excellent results in areas such as providing affordable housing.
