Scottish Daily Mail

Councils ‘at breaking point’ due to cutbacks

SNP urged to provide ‘fair’ funding ahead of budget

- By Rachel Watson

councils are at ‘breaking point’ with massive budget cuts threatenin­g the future of communitie­s, bosses have warned.

scottish local authority chiefs say further cuts will put key services at risk of collapse.

council umbrella body cosla yesterday argued that reductions to money for essential services have damaged ‘the heart of communitie­s’ and have caused people to lose pride in their homes.

cosla president Alison Evison is calling for a ‘fair’ funding settlement ahead of the scottish Government budget. she said targets for climate change and poverty will be missed because of reduced funding, along with education and other key areas. she added that social isolation is rising and people are losing pride in their local areas as council budgets are squeezed. spending watchdog the Accounts commission recently revealed there had been a funding fall of 7.6 per cent over the past five years. it said the financial position of scots local authoritie­s was ‘increasing­ly unsustaina­ble’ with scottish Government funding to councils dropping ‘significan­tly’. The commission recommende­d a ‘transforma­tion’ in how services are delivered in future.

Figures from the Accounts commission showed that 23 out of scotland’s 32 councils had drawn from their reserves last year, with a net reduction of £45million.

cosla has published a release stating councils’ budgets ‘are at breaking point’. Miss Evison said: ‘Without adequate investment in scotland’s councils the cracks are starting to show. in every indicator whether it is economic growth, tackling climate change, wellbeing or child poverty, cuts to council budgets will mean targets are missed.

‘This goes to the heart of our communitie­s. We have a situation where communitie­s are losing their sense of pride as social isolation rises due to community projects and initiative­s being cut.

‘if the scottish Government is serious about creating sustainabl­e communitie­s, they must provide councils with a fair settlement.’

A scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Despite further cuts to the scottish Budget from the uK Government, we have ensured our partners in local government receive a fair funding settlement – delivering a funding package of £11.2billion for all local authoritie­s in 2019-20, a real terms increase of more than £310million.

‘Any assumption­s relating to possible future budget settlement­s are entirely speculativ­e at this stage.’

Comment – Page 14

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