THE row between the Scottish Government and local councils has deepened amid reports of possible social care cuts in Glasgow and divisions over teacher numbers.
On Thursday, the Daily Record reported plans to cut £22 million from the social care budget in Scotland’s largest city, including £3.5 million from care home places and £3 million from the self-direct social care budget, based on a leaked document seen by the newspaper.
The cuts could also see the closure of a specialist service to support children living with someone with addiction issues to save £600,000, and cuts to drug rehab funding.
Glasgow has been at the centre of Scotland’s drug deaths crisis in recent years, consistently recording the highest number of deaths of any council area in the country.
It comes as SNP Glasgow council leader Susan Aitken criticised an intervention by SNP ministers to prevent local authorities from cutting teacher staffing numbers, in a bid to maintain a 2021 manifesto commitment.
Meanwhile, the leaked document said the cutting of rehab funding would have an impact on the recovery of people suffering from addiction issues.
“This… will decrease our capacity to offer residential rehab step-down services when the city is struggling with drug-related deaths,” the newspaper reported.
Chris Sermanni, the social work convener in Glasgow for trade union Unison, said: “These proposed cuts are the real consequence of slashing tens of millions of pounds from the social work budget.
“The reality is there are no ‘safe’ or ‘palatable’ cuts.
“Any reduction in funding has a significant impact on the delivery of key services in Glasgow.
“Social work services in the city are at crisis point as it stands, and implementing these cuts would be catastrophic.
“Glasgow needs more money, and our local politicians should be fighting for this, not timidly passing on austerity handed down from Holyrood and Westminster.”
A spokesman for the city’s integration joint board, which oversees health and social care, said: “As part of the annual budget-setting process, a cross-party group of councillors works with officers from across the council family to scrutinise and develop options on where savings and investment could be considered.
“The integration joint board will set a budget for the health and social care partnership in the months ahead and it is too early to say what options will be included.”
The report comes as councils look to set their budgets amid a wrangle between local authorities and the Scottish Government.
Ministers have said funding for councils will increase by £570 million in cash terms next year, but local authority body Cosla has said this drops to just £71 million when ring-fenced funding set aside for Government priorities is taken into account.
Last month, reports suggested Glasgow City Council could cut as many as 700 teaching roles to save money, but Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville this week announced a move to stop such cuts, with councils told they would risk having to pay back the money earmarked for teachers to the Scottish Government if not spent for that purpose.
On Wednesday, Aitken said that councils were being treated like “a delivery vehicle for national priorities”.
Writing in the Glasgow Times, Aitken said: “In each of the previous five years, the SNP city administration has ensured we’ve protected education budgets…we will do all we can to keep it that way.
“But it’s absolutely vital to the well-being of our citizens, including our children and young people, that other crucial local government roles and functions that support decent public services and quality of life within the city are recognised and valued.”
A leaked document prepared by Glasgow officials and councillors proposed earlier closing times for primary schools and slashing 800 teaching positions in an attempt to save £51 million from the education budget.
