Council Tax and spending

We provide the county’s 115,180 residents with a wide range of services including education, adult and children’s wellbeing, planning, economic development, roads, housing, transportation, environmental health, refuse collection, street cleaning, recycling, food safety, trading standards, community development, sports, recreation, parks and countryside, libraries, museums, registration of births, deaths and marriages and burial grounds.

Some examples of local residents benefit from these services:

• around 15,000 children and young people learn in our schools each year
• we provide early learning and childcare to a further 2,500 children each year
• around 1.4 million school meals are served to children and young people each year
• we look after almost 100 vulnerable children in care homes, foster care and other care settings
• more than 20,000 hours of care at home is provided each week to vulnerable adults and older people
• more than 600 people aged over 65 are cared for in residential and nursing homes
• we carry out approximately 4.7 million household waste collections each year, with more waste now being recycled
• we maintain almost 300 parks, pitches, play areas and burial grounds
• we maintain 1,147km of roads and 674km of footways
• we maintain 19,798 street lights
• we maintain over 450 properties to support public services such as schools, care homes, business development properties and community facilities
• we provide over 9,400 council homes and 1,100 garages for tenants

Around 4,958 (4,094 full-time equivalent) people work for the council.

There are 22 elected councillors:

• 10 Scottish Labour
• 6 Scottish National Party
• 4 Scottish Conservative
• 1 Scottish Green Party
• 1 Independent

Key strategic and policy decisions are taken by a cabinet of six Scottish Labour Councillors chaired by the Council Leader.

The East Lothian Council Plan

The East Lothian Council Plan 2022-2027 continues the journey towards realising our vision for an even more prosperous, safe and sustainable East Lothian, with a dynamic and thriving economy, that enables our people and communities to flourish.

The plan retains two of its original overarching objectives:

• reduce poverty and Inequality – supporting our communities to deal with the growing levels of poverty and inequality
• respond to the Climate Emergency – meeting our net zero climate change targets

The Council Plan has thematic objectives – Grow our Economy, Grow our People, Grow our Communities, and Grow our Capacity. As a result of financial and other pressures which have intensified since 2022, it has been agreed that we need to focus on delivering a smaller number of priorities.

These are:

• ensure the financial sustainability of the council through the delivery of approved savings and transforming the way we deliver services  
• target resources on statutory services and focus on the highest risks and those most in need  
• deliver key infrastructure, economic development and environmentally sustainable projects within available council resources and maximising external funding.