Scots have been warned of “suffering” and severe cuts to frontline council services after the Scottish government cut more than £300 million of funding for local authorities.
Five councils have told The Times that they expect to shoulder around £125 million of the budget cuts revealed on Thursday – forcing them to draw up plans to make “significant savings”.
Glasgow city council said that it may need to make £60m of savings while Fife forecast it would lose £30m.
Highland council, said: “We anticipate that the council’s share of this £350m cut is around £20m.” Aberdeen city council said it believed its grant would be cut by £15 million, an overall reduction in funding of 4.5 per cent.
East Lothian council said projections suggest a reduction in its revenue support grant of around £6 million next year, or 3.5 per cent of its budget.
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Other councils were still calculating the cost but said there would be a “significant overall reduction” in its grant on the back of “successive annual blows to local authority funding”.
Richard Thomson, co-leader of SNP-controlled Aberdeenshire council, admitted the local authority would have less money over the next financial year.
Derek Mackay, the Scottish government finance secretary, said he was investing an extra £240m in local services when he unveiled his draft budget.
The figure is disputed by councils who say there will be a £350 million cut to the local government core grant.
The draft budget showed the amount of money local government will receive from Holyrood dropping from just under £10.1 billion this year to slightly less than £9.65 billion in real terms in 2017-18.
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Mr Mackay insisted that local services would receive extra funding as local authorities were allowed to increase council tax by up to 3 per cent.
Central government will pay £120 million directly to head teachers to close the attainment gap and councils will receive £357 million from the NHS to pay for closer links between the health and social care sectors.
But local authority leaders said these measures did not cover the cuts in core local government funding and would mean continued austerity and a further cut to already squeezed public services.
Frank McAveety, the Labour leader of Glasgow city council, told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland: “We’re talking about a reduction of £60 to £70 million this year, even with the 3 per cent [council tax rise]. So we’re talking about the maximum raising from that of about £6 million, so there’s a massive gulf. The idea that that compensates for the cumulative impact on Glasgow over the years is just kidding on.”
Eddie McAvoy, South Lanarkshire council leader, said: “The finance secretary tried to dress his draft budget up as being good for local services, but the bottom line is that he took more than £350million out of the cash that goes directly to councils to provide those services. As a result, those services and the people who rely on them will suffer.”
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Alex Rowley MSP, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, said: “The SNP is in denial about the scale of the cuts.”