Council tax will rise, charges will be increased and services cut as Glasgow City Council meets today to set its budget for the next year.

It is expected that council tax will go up by 5% to raise £12 million towards the budget shortfall faced by the city.

All charges will go up by between 5% and 10% to bring in more cash to prevent deeper cuts to council services.

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However, the City Treasurer, Richard Bell, said there will be no teacher job cuts, no community venue closures, no cuts to bin collections, no cut to the holiday food programme and no compulsory redundancies as suggested in some leaked options documents.

While the budget is still being fine-tuned, almost up until it is delivered, the Glasgow Times understands it will mean parking charges will rise for both residential permits and on-street parking.

There will be a charge introduced for garden waste in a pilot with residents needing to buy a permit of between £100 and £150 a year.

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Councillor Bell said: “There will be no abolition of services. There will be a slight reduction in some services.

“There will be a headcount reduction but it will all be through early retirement voluntary redundancy.

“No community-based venues or libraries and museums will close and no changes to schools hours or days.”

On schools, the education management budget will be cut by 10% but teacher numbers and staffing is not affected.

There are expected to be some changes to the opening hours of some museums at quieter times.

He said his budget will propose an increase on all charges including trading licenses, and marriage licences.

Glasgow Life, which has been subsidised by the council since the pandemic, will be expected to also increase charges for memberships and classes.

And lets for schools and community venues will go up by somewhere between 5% and 10%

He said: “It is better that we ask everybody to pay a bit more rather than reduce services for the most vulnerable.”

He added the alternative was a bigger reduction in services.

The treasurer said if the council was to refuse to set a budget or fail to set one it would be taken out of the council’s hands and decided by civil servants from the Scottish Government.

He said it would mean only statutory services would be funded and priorities like the communities fund and holiday food fund would be stripped out

He added: “That is a disgraceful place to put Glasgow in.

“Leadership is about standing up and taking difficult decisions.

“It is shocking that some want to stand in George Square and protest rather than sit in the city chambers.”

The Treasurer said that more money than expected from the Scottish Government for pay awards has helped bring down the spending gap.

He said there have been conversations with the Deputy First Minister over recent weeks.

However, he added that the current funding situation cannot continue and called for more powers for the council to raise its own income.

He called for the ability to introduce a congestion charge for non-Glasgow residents, a tourist tax and possibly charging non-residents for entry to museums.