Scottish council chiefs fear cuts could cost 22,000 jobs

Council bosses fear they may have to cut up to 22,000 jobs across Scotland as the expected budget squeeze takes hold, a survey of local authority managers has revealed.

The study found that more than half (51 per cent) of the council bosses believed the looming public sector cutbacks could lead to redundancies affecting between 6 and 10 per cent of their workforce - or 13,000 to 22,000 employees.

Business advisers Grant Thornton asked 39 senior managers from 24 councils across the country for their views on how they intended to cope with the anticipated cut in funding.

As well as worries over job losses, the survey revealed the services likely to be hardest hit by cuts were transport and environmental services - cited by 46 per cent - followed by education and training cited by 31 per cent.

Almost two thirds of respondents (62 per cent) said councils should look to sharing services to save money, but only 10 per cent supported finding efficiencies by a greater use of the private sector to deliver public services. Only one council chief executive said the number of councils in Scotland should be reviewed, but this approach was backed by a third of all the finance directors in the study.

The jobs warning is the latest in a series of dire predictions for employees of Scotland's councils, with the recent Independent Budget Review commissioned by Scottish ministers warning up to 55,000 local authority jobs could be on the line in the coming years.

Gary Devlin, director at Grant Thornton, said: "The projected 10 per cent cut will mean up to 22,000 fewer local government employees in three years' time. This is unlikely to be achieved without a compulsory redundancy programme, which trade unions will find difficult to stomach."

A spokesman for the public sector union Unison Scotland said: "There is nothing in this survey which supports the case for cutting the vital services which councils provide, or the jobs of the people who provide them. Unison Scotland will continue to campaign for the decent public services which the people of Scotland need and for which they have consistently voted."

Meanwhile, Labour's local government spokesman Michael McMahon said no-one doubted the challenging times that lay ahead for councils.

He added: "That's why there needs to be a clear statement from the SNP that local authorities will still get the 70 million set aside for the council tax freeze to protect services."

Tory finance spokesman Derek Brownlee said: "There is a straight choice in front of our councils and council workers - either have a pay freeze or lose more jobs. Which would the unions prefer? Pay restraint or thousands more job losses?"

A Scottish Government spokesman said Scotland faced "an increasingly constrained financial environment because of Westminster spending cuts".

"While staffing matters are for councils to determine, we remain committed to working with Scotland's local authorities and maintaining a regular dialogue through Cosla to address the significant economic and financial challenges we face as a result of mismanagement of the UK's finances," he said.