ONE of Scotland’s best performing local authorities is making £26million worth of savings and axing hundreds of jobs yet will also increase council tax bills by nearly 10 per cent.
East Renfrewshire Council, which has some of the highest achieving schools in the country, is also looking to make “significant” cuts of £9m in its education budget.
This would see class sizes rise in schools, fewer classes in secondaries and all pupil support assistants phased out in just four years.
The Labour-SNP coalition-led council also plans a 10 per cent reduction in its roads budget and a huge £9.11m cut in health and social care – equivalent to savings of 20 per cent.
It comes as councils are facing a financial black hole of more than half a billion pounds in only two years’ time unless they make major cuts, according to an official analysis.
The Accounts Commission forecasts the gap between the amount local government spends and its income could grow from £87m in 2016/17 to an estimated £367m in the current financial year, before rising again to £553m in 2018/19.
More than a third of Scotland’s 32 local authorities will face a funding gap that is greater than the amount of cash they have in reserves, its report said, despite managing their funds well in the face of deep cuts by the Scottish Governments to their grants.
East Renfrewshire, which includes the affluent suburbs of Giffnock and Newton Mearns, has launched a public consultation on setting its budget for the next three years in which it projects a £26m shortfall.
The council said that council tax bills for residents will rise by three per cent in each of the next three years and follows a similar rise this year and will put more than £100 on the annual average Band D rate and will see 300 posts lost. East Renfrewshire will also consider saving £1m by reducing the number of classroom pupil support assistants and behaviour assistants, who look after the most vulnerable children in a school.
East Renfrewshire Council leader, Councillor Tony Buchanan, said: “Some of the proposals being put forward for consultation are extremely challenging however I want to reassure residents that throughout this difficult process the needs of those in our communities who are most vulnerable will continue to be our core focus.
“The financial challenges that ERC faces today are similar to those being experienced in many households.
“Essentially, our income is not increasing at the same rate as our expenditure and as such we have to find new and different ways to make ends meet.”
“We absolutely understand how important this consultation is to our communities, particularly as over 60 per cent of our staff are also local residents.
Local authorities spent £19.5 billion last year, £600m more than their income, with spending increasing on “key services” such as social care “because of rising demand from an ageing population”.
Among the other spending pressures the report cited were staff pensions and servicing more than £13.7bn of debt.
This cost local authorities around £1.5bn in interest and repayments, with 22 of them spending more than 10 per cent of their income servicing debt.
The Accounts Commission report found council are paying off around £500m a year of the cost building projects funded by various forms of private finance. They have spent a further £500m over the past five years on exit packages for 13,000 staff.
The East Renfrewshire Council consultation will be open until November 28, with the final budget being decided at a meeting of the full council on February 8.
A COSLA spokesman said: “COSLA are in talks with the Scottish Government regarding the spending review and will be presenting a strong case that Local Government cannot sustain further cuts, as experiment over the last two years, without significant impact on services and jobs, and most importantly the communities we serve to protect.
"COSLA will be making it clear that to achieve the shared objectives of the Scottish Government and Local Government, which are to promote inclusive growth and tackle inequalities, then it is essential the Local Government is treated fairly in this upcoming spending review.”
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