Senior Highland councillors yesterday expressed anger that a number of savings targets are unlikely to be achieved this year.
The local authority agreed its 2015/16 budget in December last year, but only three months in, a number of difficulties have emerged.
Among them is a move to introduce a 33-period timetable across all secondary schools, which would have saved £150,000.
And there is a danger that the re-negotiation of the council’s two PPP contracts will also fall short of the projected £850,000 savings.
There is also consternation that a Scottish Government commitment to protect teacher numbers means that £520,000 of savings cannot be achieved.
In total, £755,000 of savings are assessed “red” meaning unlikely to happen, with a further £1.78million marked as amber.
Finance director Derek Yule admitted to yesterday’s resources committee that some of the savings were “unlikely to be delivered”, although the majority of measures – about £10.3million – were on target.
He added that service directors had put forward savings which they “genuinely believed were achievable”.
And keeping posts vacant will save the council £1million this year.
In total, the council is seeking £12.9million of savings this year.
Councillor Maxine Smith, who led the process to set this year’s budget, said she was deeply concerned.
She said: “I cannot accept this report that in quarter one we cannot achieve all of these savings.”
She added: “We have to save £46million off the budget (over the next four years) and we are saying here that we cannot deliver it without vacancy management.
“I think we have to tell officers to go back and look at this again. It must be delivered,
“I also cannot accept that PPP negotiations have not found savings. I was assured that it could be delivered. I find it unacceptable.”
Councillor David Alston said that more information was needed on why savings were not going to be delivered.
He added: “We need to know why these were brought on serious savings and why they turned out not be achievable.”
A separate report revealed that there are also pressures on so-called “transformational savings”.
These included efforts to share services with other councils and agencies, including business support, trading standards and fraud services.