To come to this year ... I will do to get every of Scottish budget...
Holyrood for not listening need for more funding
they have pursued a policy that is unfair, and biased against local councils.”
He added: “The Scottish Government budget is rising, councils like South Lanarkshire should get their fair share.
“And we’re at a point now where the cuts that have been imposed deliberately on Scotland’s councils are causing real harm to the community.
“The Scottish Government say they want to be our partners and they want to partner with us on a whole range of issues and they tell us that because they are our partners they will put forward a fair funding settlement.
“One side of a partnership does not get to dictate if a funding settlement is fair or not, the only way we can really determine if a funding settlement is fair is if both partners agree.
“Well, both partners do not agree because the local government is crying out for help.”
He went on: “£16m is needed to balance the budget, but this year is the most volatile year that there has ever been for councils or any part of the public sector when it comes to setting budgets.
“That’s because of the financial instability and uncertainty that came from the autumn statement, so inflation is exceptionally high.
“And also some of this can be very hard to predict, we’re getting mixed messages from the government about how much resource is really available.
“That means there’s more uncertainty when it comes to setting this year’s budget than there ever has been before.”
In the past ten years, there’s been a 9.6 per cent real term decline in core council budgets.
Cllr Fagan claims that the Scottish Government is not cooperating well with COSLA’s request and the call for extra funding from all 32 local authorities in Scotland.
He said: “Right now the Scottish Government has not responded positively to COSLA’s request to meet with John Swinney.
“The Scottish Government insist that their budget is providing £550m more for councils and do not seem to accept the analysis from COSLA that the core budget for councils is totally inadequate.
“They seem to think that because the budget is better than we might otherwise have expected or anticipated that somehow councils have got a fair deal and if we’re to have a real partnership with the Scottish Government then both sides of that partnership need to accept that that’s a fair deal – right now one partner says it is the other partner says that it isn’t.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government recognises the crucial role councils and their employees play in our communities across Scotland and the challenging financial circumstances they face.
“The Scottish Government’s settlements from the UK Government have suffered a decade of austerity with average real-term cuts of over five per cent, equating to a loss of £18bn.
“Despite this, we have listened to councils and are increasing the resources available to local government by over £570m, a real terms increase of £160.6m or 1.3 per cent.
“We’re also maintaining £591m revenue from the NHS to Integration Authorities to ensure improved outcomes on health and social care.
“And local government funding will also receive allocations from within other Scottish Government portfolios.
“We want to work with local government, to build on the Covid Recovery Strategy and agree an urgent approach which improves delivery of sustainable public services.
“The Deputy First Minister made clear in his letter of 15 December to the COSLA president that we want to develop such a partnership agreement at pace.
“We are disappointed that to date COSLA have not responded to this offer.”
We’re at a point where cuts imposed on councils are causing real harm