CRITICS have claimed new brown bin permits won't be available until later in the year despite being due to begin next month.

City councillors confirmed the budget choices last month with plans to introduce a new charge for the kerbside collection bins which typically house garden waste.

However, the GMB union has now claimed it won't be possible to make the changes before October at the earliest.

As part of the union's Streets of Shame campaign, convenor Chris Mitchell said: "There have been a lot of changes made in this budget that we don't support, but bigger than that is a lot of them just don't seem possible.

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"How are they expecting to get all these permits rolled out, especially with less staff?

"It makes no sense. We need investment, not cuts. This is totally pointless."

He added: “We have been consistent and clear; the council cannot cut its way out of a crisis while hoping to sustainably deliver statutory and key services. It is simply not possible.”

As previously reported by the Glasgow Times, the council was forced to make a string of cuts entering into 2023/24 to plug an almost £50 million deficit.

Council tax will rise by 5%, parking charges will be hiked up and non-teacher resource budgets will be slashed for schools by 10% as part of the measures.

A spokesperson for the council said: “We are working on introducing a permit for brown bin collections of garden and food waste as early as possible in the next financial year.”

They added: “These measures were agreed by councillors as part of the council’s budget for 2023/24, which has required the council to identify almost £50m worth of savings to cover a funding gap for this year.

“The budget aimed to protect services and jobs wherever possible. Any revenue raised as part of the budget will go to support a range of services.”

Speaking at the time of the budget, councillor Richard Bell said the budget protects services from further cuts.

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He said: “This is not the budget any of us would wish to deliver. But it is one which has gone a considerable distance to protect and maintain those services upon which our communities depend.

“It’s a budget also shaped by the most turbulent economic and financial context most people can remember.”

He added: “There are many things in this budget I wish we didn’t need to do.

“But it is my view that increasing charges, including parking charges and asking all our citizens to pay a 5% rise in their council tax, is preferable to slashing vital services many Glaswegians rely on.

“Longer term this is no way to deliver for Glasgow. We need to have a conversation with the Scottish and UK governments and our citizens about how local government is resourced and the levers available to us. But that’s for another day.”