Scottish councils face slashing more than 7,000 full-time jobs over the next three years to plug gaps in local budgets.
A leaked document from Cosla, which represents the 32 local authorities across the country, said an average of 240 jobs could be cut from every council in order to balance the books.
Councillors are already preparing to close hundreds of public facilities such as leisure centres, concert venues and sports stadiums as they grapple with the cost of inflation and years of real-terms budget cuts passed on by the Scottish Government.
Anas Sarwar raised the prospect of massive job cuts with Nicola Sturgeon at First Minister's Questions today.
The Scottish Labour leader said: "Local government in Scotland is in crisis. The public are being asked to foot the bill for public services that are getting worse by the week because this Government underfunded councils for fifteen years.
"For 15 years the SNP have underfunded councils - even when her ministers had more money to spend.
"And now people across Scotland are facing the double whammy of increasing income taxes and hikes in council tax.
"That means taxes will go up not just for the richest but for almost every household in Scotland, but services will still be cut."
Sarwar added: "And now a leaked COSLA document reveals potential job losses on a massive scale. They estimate over 7,000 jobs will be lost."
The GMB union has previously blamed governments at both Holyrood and Westminster for creating the crisis by “passing the buck on austerity” on to councils for over a decade.
Sarwar added: "After 15 years of command and control, things have got so bad that many of Nicola Sturgeon’s own colleagues are no longer willing to blindly follow orders.
"Her MPs have lost faith in the strategy and Councillors have lost faith in her decisions. And now her MSPs face a choice – vote through these savage cuts or finally stand up for local communities."
Sturgeon hit back: "Councillors are not wrong to say we live in times of real financial difficulty and constraint.
"It's true of the Scottish Government and it's true of councils across our country.
"We hear these kinds of questions as councils look at options put before them - often these options are not taken forward.
"But it is important that all councils look carefully at how they balance their budgets and in a way that fulfils their priorities."
The SNP leader added: "In the budget for the financial year ahead, we are proposing an increase in the resources available to local government of over £570m - that's a real terms increase of £160m.
"Times are difficult for local government, but within the constrained financial resources we have, we are treating them as fairly as we possibly can."
The calculations come from a Cosla finance document which surveyed councils on the impact on the 2023/24 budget projections.
Of the 23 councils which provided figures, an estimated 5,400 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs could be axed between 2023/24 and 2025/26 – around 240 per local authority.
The council governing body then calculated a reduction of 7,500 FTE jobs over all 32 local authorities in the next three years.
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