Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
JIM LOGUE ‘Catastrophic’ budget cuts to council by SNP
At the time of writing this column we are anxiously awaiting the budget announcement by the SNP Government in Edinburgh.
By the time you read this, it is likely that the council will yet again find itself in a position where it is being asked to deliver more and more services with an ever smaller budget.
With £100 million of cuts predicted to be heading our way from Edinburgh over the next three years, the services you rely on will continue to bear the brunt of SNP cuts.
A fortnight ago Labour held a budget debate in the Scottish Parliament, calling on the SNP Government to stop their catastrophic cuts to councils. They have cut council budgets at four times the rate that Westminster has cut theirs and local government is at breaking point as a result.
During the debate SNP MSPs lined up to claim that councils get a “fair” deal. If local MSPs such as Alex Neil and
Fulton MacGregor believe that taking £260 million out of your council’s budget for your bin collections, schools, roads and grass cutting services over the past 13 years is fair, then they need to spend more time in their communities, rather than playing politics with their political masters in Edinburgh. Council cuts are SNP cuts – nobody else’s.
Now, some nationalists are challenging other parties to say where they would find the money to stop the cuts to councils. Thankfully, due to their appalling record in government, you don’t have to look very far to identify the £ 1 billion that COSLA says councils need to keep their funding at current levels.
The SNP have under spent their budget each year since they came to power, which adds up to a staggering £3 billion over the past 13 years. That’s money which sat in a government bank account instead of being used to pay for your vital services.
They’ve also wasted more than £100 million propping up failed businesses and another £100 million attempting to build two ferries side by side in the Ferguson yard in Port Glasgow against all expert advice.
Add to this the recent news that they’ve trebled their PR budget to spin their way out of these disasters and a picture emerges of an SNP Government which is wasting taxpayers’ money on vanity projects instead of funding the services that each and every one of us depend on.
We know that the SNP in North Lanarkshire like to play politics with our budget. Last week, the SNP claimed that our administration wanted to end outdoor education for young people in North Lanarkshire by closing Kilbowie.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The Labour proposal passed at the policy and strategy committee will actually enshrine outdoor provision as part of children’s education in North Lanarkshire, despite the catastrophic cuts to our budget by the SNP.
We will give schools a greater choice in which facilities they use and for that experience to be continued after they have their week away. These proposals will be brought to committee in March.
The Kilbowie building may be going, but the experience it provides for our young people will stay.
After 13 years of austerity, North Lanarkshire can’t afford another round of catastrophic cuts. Members of the public are starting to wonder, quite rightly, why they are paying more for Council Tax and service charges and why those they have elected to fight on their behalf are more interested in playing games in the Scottish Parliament or our council chamber than standing up for their constituents.
As we approach our budget day on February 24, it’s clear that SNP MSPs and councillors in North Lanarkshire now have to make a choice about what’s most important to them – their constituents or their careers.