Glasgow sets budget to invest in citizens' priorities

Members have agreed a 7.5% increase in Council Tax - 2.5% higher than assumed in last year's budget, with the additional revenue ringfenced to hire hundreds of additional staff in cleansing, parks and other vital services.  

The budget, tabled jointly by the SNP City Government and the Scottish Green group, also reverses planned education savings and commits resources to extend free school meals to all primary school pupils over the next two years.

Members backed investment in key measures to tackle poverty and support families - including continuation of the city's Holiday Programme, which provides free food and activities during the school holidays, and funding for Financial Inclusion in Schools officers, who have already secured millions of pounds in social security entitlements for families.

Council Leader Susan Aitken said:  

"This budget round comes after more than a decade of austerity, where public services have been starved of sufficient resources to even keep pace with need and demand.

"Nobody can walk back that kind of impact overnight, or even over one year - but this budget makes substantial progress in starting to address some of Glasgow's challenges and meeting the aspirations of a changing, modern city.

"For me, being able to expand free school meal provision is a great example.

"Our position is far from perfect - things are still very difficult - but this is the first time in a long time that we have had the headroom to think not just about the least worst decision, but giving people more of what they value."

Glasgow's 25/26 budget will also invest to maintain the delivery of crucial support for families, such as the very successful Holiday Programme, which provides free food and activities during the school holidays, and the Financial Inclusion in Schools officers, who have secured millions of pounds in social security entitlements for families.

Key measures agreed by members include:

• £3m to extend the provision of universal free school meals
• £2.3m to recruit dedicated Neighbourhood Clean Teams for each ward in the city
• £1.5m to recruit additional street cleansing staff
• £1.2m to recruit additional parks staff and an extra £3m for park maintenance
• £1.4m to double the number of existing city Deep Clean Teams
• An additional £20m for the upkeep of roads, cycle lanes, pavements, parks and open spaces
• Doubling Scottish Government funding to address the climate emergency, providing £8m to support renewable energy, flood prevention and other climate priorities
• Establishing a £9.5m fund to buy and transform empty and blighted properties and land
• Cash to extend opening hours at swimming pools
• An additional £4m to support community-based health and social work services
• Scotland's first free public transport pilot

Glasgow City Treasurer and Depute Leader, Cllr Ricky Bell, said:

"We listen very closely to what Glaswegians tell us about what is important to them and their communities - and, when you are asking households to contribute more, it is really important that you use that money to invest it their priorities.

"That's exactly what we are doing today - hiring hundreds of new staff in cleansing, parks and a whole range of frontline services; providing more money for roads and pavements, and ringfencing cash from council tax to make sure households can see it at work."

Glasgow Green group co-leader and Finance lead, Cllr Jon Molyneux, said:

"We approached this budget looking not only to find common ground with colleagues across the chamber, but to build on it and address the priorities of people in our city.

"The most recent Glasgow Household Survey sent a very clear message that we need to rebuild trust in local services, which have toiled under years of austerity.

"This budget starts to do that, channelling much-needed investment towards core council services and areas that some of our most vulnerable citizens rely on, like social work."

Read the full document at https://onlineservices.glasgow.gov.uk/councillorsandcommittees/viewDoc.asp?c=P62AFQDNNTDNZLT1UT