The investment will include new build housing.

Council leader Les Sharp said: “We continue to maintain reasonable rents in Clackmannanshire, at the same time as delivering very good quality housing stock. Excellent progress has been made in delivering the Scottish Housing Quality Standard, and the local Clackmannanshire Standard is now complete. The agreed budget also allows the council to make capital investment, including new build housing and home energy improvement projects.”

Elsewhere in the budget, capital funding of £5.356m will be invested in projects including:

Work on community investment strategy, developing local hubs

Refurbishment of a number of primary schools, including a new school and community campus at Tullibody South

Village and Town Centre Initiative - building on improvement work already successfully delivered or underway in Sauchie and Tullibody

Councillor Sharp added: “We are making some significant capital investments to support our budget priorities including the Community Investment Strategy, to deliver joined up and integrated service delivery to our communities. We will be developing the local hubs to support our delivery of Making Clackmannanshire Better, and improving our schools estate including the building of a new community campus in Tullibody South.”

The council’s overall revenue budget was set at £112.684m with savings approved totalling £7.805m. Councillors heard that there is a cumulative funding gap of £17.988m to 2019/20 and that council tax is to be frozen for the ninth year, maintaining bills at 2007/08 levels.

As a result, the Employment Fund has been increased to £4.7m in order to finance the voluntary release of staff. A report on the uptake of targeted voluntary redundancy will be brought back to the council once the indicative uptake has been confirmed. The saving agreed will result in a reduction of 106.58 full time equivalent posts (FTEs), of which 25.9FTEs are currently vacant.

Councillor Sharp said: “There is no doubt that the budget setting process has been extremely challenging this year. This budget has a strong focus on change and allows us to take further significant steps to Make Clackmannanshire Better and ensuring that the council has a sustainable future to allow us to deliver essential services. We have set out Phase 1 of the implementation of the Cluster Model, and continued the process of streamlining service delivery and takes action to address the managed contraction in staffing. We have also retained the council’s reserves above the minimum level.”