Councils warn of cuts and job losses as Holyrood and Westminster prepare budgets
Councils have warned of job losses and severe cuts to vital services on the horizon as Holyrood and Westminster prepare their budgets.
Local authority umbrella body Cosla has warned there are no soft targets'' left to find savings from, and the Scottish Government's council tax freeze puts them in astraitjacket'' in their efforts to raise revenue.
Chancellor George Osborne will make his budget statement on Wednesday, and Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney will announce his own spending plans next month.
Cosla finance spokesman Kevin Keenan, a Labour councillor in Dundee, said: I feel it is vital that as Cosla's finance spokesperson I make both the Chancellor in London and Mr Swinney in Edinburgh fully aware of the financial pressures we in local government are up against.
Scottish local government is already facing nearly half a billion pounds of spending pressures for next year and this is before George Osborne or John Swinney even have their pencils out.
For the sake of Communities throughout Scotland I can only hope that neither of their pencils are particularly sharp because Scottish local government and the communities we represent cannot really take any more pain.
We are already operating within a financial straitjacket in terms of the tools we have at our disposal with things like the Council Tax freeze restricting our ability to operate.
Make no mistake, councils are going to be faced with making very difficult decisions but this time around we are talking about more than soft targets - we are talking of severe cuts in vital services and job losses in communities and undoubtedly these will impact on the most vulnerable in our society.
No one in local government wants to see that happen so it is imperative that this message is not only heard by those who control the purse strings but is acted upon.'' A Scottish Government spokesman said:Despite UK Government cuts of nearly 10% to the Scottish budget, local government finance settlements have been maintained over the period 2012-16, with extra money for new responsibilities, including an additional £70 million every year since 2008/09 to fully fund the council tax freeze, with the total settlement in 2015-16 over £10.85 billion.''