Job fears as council faces £2m cuts shortfall

Published on Saturday 26 September 2009 21:34

SCOTLAND'S biggest education authority is £2 million short of its savings target because of higher than expected pupil numbers.

The Glasgow City Council gap has emerged despite its closure of about 20 primary schools this year.

The local authority is facing further financial pressure as a clampdown on illegal claims for single-person council tax discount has failed to significantly reduce such spending, with fewer than expected bogus claimants.

Council chiefs are now considering staff cuts of up to one in ten of the workforce and cutting funding for major venues such as the Citizens' Theatre and the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre.

Stephen Curran, the council's executive member for service reform, said there were "significantly less placing requests for schools outside the city", which had pushed up the expected numbers of pupils.

The news came as the Labour-run council's relationship with the SNP Scottish Government fell to a new low. The council blamed ministers for delaying two major venues for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. The Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome and the National Indoor Sports Arena, have been delayed for at least a year.

It says the "principal reason" for this is an 18-month delay by the government in deciding to relocate sportscotland from Edinburgh to Glasgow. This has been denied by the government.

Labour and SNP leaders have traded insults since ministers axed the Glasgow Airport rail link ten days ago.