SNP is ‘bleeding cash from councils’

The council leader of Scotland’s biggest city has warned it faces a “real struggle” to balance the books in the face of swingeing budget cuts.

Glasgow city council leader Gordon Matheson accused the SNP of “bleeding money away” from councils, with £350 million being cut from budgets in the year ahead.

Labour is warning that the figure of 13,000 local government job losses in 2011 could be surpassed this year, with the areas burdened by the highest unemployment facing the biggest cuts.

But the SNP government insists that councils’ level of revenue spending is being maintained in 2012-13 and that their settlement has been “accepted in principle” – including a freeze in the council tax.