Families have been reassured there is no funding cut to the holiday food and activity projects running across the city next week.
Last month the Glasgow Times reported how there were dozens of projects that would run programmes during the October break to ensure children could still get access to a hot meal during the day.
A total of 52 organisations will share £742,524 to run projects with activities with food provided during the school holidays in October and in the spring next year.
READ MORE: More than 50 initiatives across Glasgow get cash for school holiday food projects
The funding is for four days during the October week and eight days over the spring holidays.
However, a Labour councillor had said that there was a 20% cut being applied and the organisations were being told not to run activities.
Fiona Higgins, councillor for the Canal ward in the north of the city, said there was an immediate funding cut being imposed.
Councillor Higgins posted on twitter: “I am dismayed by news that all school holiday food [programmes] across Glasgow have had an immediate funding cut of 20% and been advised to spend no money on activities.
“The SNP administration have effectively just created 52 children‘s soup kitchens in modern day Glasgow! Disgraceful.”
The council however said there is “no cut” in funding and no changes have been made to the allocations of expectations to run activities as well as provide food.
The tweet drew an angry response from SNP council leader Susan Aitken, who said it was “absolute nonsense”.
She said:"I’m going to give councillor Higgins the benefit of the doubt here and assume she’s been badly misinformed but everything she’s tweeted here is absolute nonsense.
“There has been no cut to the children’s holiday food and activity programme: in fact we’re funding more projects than before.
“It’s simply untrue to claim there is no money for activities. This is a Holiday Food *and* Activity Programme, the clue is in the name.”
She added: “It’s tempting to dismiss this kind of misinformation but it risks putting off families who could really benefit from this great programme (which, as an aside, never existed under Labour) at a time when it’s needed more than ever so it needs to be strongly refuted.”
The Glasgow Times contacted the city council to clarify whether any changes to the budget for the organisations delivering the projects had taken place.
A spokesperson for Glasgow City Council said: “We have funded an additional 12 more organisations to deliver both food and activities during the October school break next week and more than two million meals in total since the launch of the holiday food and activity programme in 2018.”
The full list of projects and the amount of funding for October and April can be found here.
READ MORE: Full list of Glasgow children's holiday food projects. Is there one near you?
The Glasgow Times attempted to contact councillor Higgins for comment.
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