SNP and Scottish Greens inflict yet more cuts on Glasgow

Chris Sermanni – Glasgow City UNISON branch secretary (personal capacity)

Further pressure was piled on already beleaguered council services in Glasgow today as a joint SNP/Green budget was passed this week in the City Chambers.

Both Labour and Your Party also tabled budgets for consideration at the full council meeting.

Glasgow, like all other local authorities in Scotland, has borne the brunt of an unrelenting assault on council funding for more than 15 years. All of the main political parties in power at Westminster and Holyrood have a hand in this.

The Tories austerity agenda has continued under Starmer’s Labour government, who have proven beyond doubt that they are no friend of the working class. Both the SNP and Greens have handed this down with barely a whimper, content to say it will be different in an independent Scotland that they can’t deliver.

The headline figure was that the council had to deal with a £14.75m cut – much lower than had previously been anticipated.

The main reason for this was that they negotiated a one year ‘capitalisation’ deal with the Scottish Government that allowed them to borrow money against future capital spending and convert this to revenue. The main motivation for this was to mitigate the ongoing homeless accommodation costs for this year – estimated at £56m. 

Glasgow, like other local authorities around the UK, has been given no financial support from either the UK or Scottish Government to support the increase in homeless spending that is a consequence of the accelerated asylum decision process.

This has meant that asylum seekers are processed more quickly and have to leave Home Office accommodation far sooner. Councils are expected to pick up this cost within their existing budgets. This is essentially a further attack on local government budgets and is an abdication of responsibility from first Westminster and then Holyrood.

Whilst the deal to mitigate these costs gives the council some ‘breathing space’, it does nothing to address the issue. Costs are expected to rise to around £70m next year and £91m the year after. The lack of available council housing, nor any meaningful building programme creates a further bottleneck leaving homeless applicants in unsuitable temporary accommodation for longer.

It is crucial to add that the £14.75m figure quoted does not include cuts to the Integrated Joint Board (IJB). Thr IJB is funded by both Glasgow City Council and the NHS. The board is responsible for decision making and administration of social care services for the council. 

The IJB sets its budget later – in March – and the anticipated cut between GCC and NHS is £53m. The council’s share of this means that at even a conservative estimate, the real cuts to services in the city is at least double the £14.75m, likely more. The council were able to confirm that there will be no impact to jobs or services in the council this year – the same cannot be said for the IJB at this stage.

The final budget passed with a council tax increase of 5.9%, up from an initial estimate of 5%. This is likely due to a late decision to modestly increase funding to the IJB by £5.4m, which does not close the funding gap.

Council tax rises

The increase in council tax by 5.9% means that the people of Glasgow have seen their bills increase by a disgraceful 13.4% in two years.

A direct comparison with the COSLA pay award – 7.5% over the same period – underlines how councils give with one hand and remove with the other. These same workers – many of whom also live in the city – have already had to bear the brunt of multiple below inflation pay increases that has decimated the value of their salary.

Labour also proposed a budget of their own. Their councillors were quick to boast that their budget only increased council tax by 3.4% They were not so quick to boast that essentially moved cuts elsewhere. No measures in their budget addressed the issues with social care funding. 

Your Party were the only other political group who tabled a budget for consideration. The Your Party councillors defected from the Greens last year, citing the role they had played in implementing cuts budgets at Holyrood and council level as a primary motivator for the switch. 

The trade unions in Glasgow have had a consistent position of calling on politicians to set a one year no cuts budget to build a mass campaign with trade unions and community groups to win more funding for the city. This call had fallen on deaf ears until this year. 

Your Party councillors engaged with the unions on their plans and indicated their willingness to put forward a no cuts budget. This engagement was welcome and a refreshing change to other parties who at best pass cuts with ‘a heavy heart’.

The budget proposed funding to investigate the feasibility of a 4 day working week with no loss of pay for council workers, for the return of council housing to Glasgow City Council and a working group seek to have services commissioned by the council brought back in house.

Unfortunately, the budget tabled on the day was not a no cuts budget. Initially, it proposed a 5% increase in council tax – later amended to 3.7% – and crucially failed to address IJB cuts. 

Your Party councillors should continue to engage with trade unions to set a genuine no cuts budget. In doing so, councillors should fight any bureaucratic measures by officers that may stop them using any legitimate means to do so – including use of reserves. 

Whilst some politicians may try and spin this as a ‘good budget’ as the cuts were not as severe as initially feared, it is anything but.

The continued onslaught decimating funding shows no signs of abating. Socialists in the city need to redouble their efforts to fight for the funding the city deserves. This includes standing trade union and socialist candidates for Holyrood and the council elections next year on a fighting no cuts platform.