Council cuts will impact everyone - Scotsman comment

It was, as expected, an incredibly difficult balancing act for John Swinney.

The Scottish Budget last week was both the most important and most difficult in the history of devolution.

There were big calls, not least the decision to increase tax on higher earners, controversy over the statistics being quoted and many political points being scored by each side.

But when it comes down to it, the most important aspect is what is going to happen on the ground.

Cosla, the umbrella group representing Scottish local authorities, sounded the first severe warning the day after the Budget, highlighting the prospect of essential services being halted to make ends meet. Cosla is no stranger to sounding the alarm, but this situation truly is unprecedented and added weight is given to the fears by the number of SNP council leaders joining the furore.

The leaders also again urged the Scottish Government to pause its proposed National Care Service, saying funding should instead be reallocated to social care and prevention measures within local government.

As Katie Hagmann, Cosla’s resources spokeswoman, said: “Council services will now be at absolute breaking point. This is a result of cuts to our councils’ core budgets and direction on spend towards other Scottish Government priorities over the last few years.

“There is a real risk that many of our essential services may have to stop altogether.”

The fear over the impact has only grown over the weekend and will increase again today as individual local authorities find out how much they will have to work with. Mr Swinney has given councils a freehand to increase council tax, but double-digit rises have already been ruled out amid the cost-of-living crisis.

And so what is more likely to transpire is service cuts and potentially large-scale job losses across the country. Even at this stage, we would urge the Scottish Government to sit down again with local authorities to find a way through instead of simply passing the buck on unpopular decisions to local representatives. As families across the country struggle to keep the lights on this Christmas, savage cutbacks to essential services cannot be allowed to happen.