GLASGOW City Council is facing more than £100 million of budget cuts over the next three years.
Councillors are meeting next week to set the budget and officials have confirmed the scale of the cuts required to balance the books.
A report shows a spending gap of £107.7m for 2004/25 to 2026/27.
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The gap between what the council spends and what it gets in income includes cash from the Scottish Government to fund a freeze in council tax had it been increased by 5%.
The government will provide £15.5m to the city as its share of £144m across Scotland for the freeze.
Director of Finance Martin Booth has informed councillors of the state of the finances.
In a report, he said: “Following receipt of the draft Local Government Settlement for 2024-25 all political groups were provided with an update in January 2024 which reflected a revised spending gap of £109.5m.
“This was subsequently updated to £107.7m to reflect amendments to the proposed CT Freeze funding.
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“It incorporates £9.4m of savings options already approved or approved under delegated authority and therefore deemed Technical Adjustments.”
The city’s settlement from the Scottish Government budget is £1,590.981m plus the cash for the council tax freeze.
The council will also delve into its reserves to cope with the funding crisis.
A Budget Support Fund created in 2022-23 to support the delivery of the budget over the medium term had a balance on 31 March 2023 of £105.4m.
Mr Booth said: “This is expected to reduce to £60m by March 31, 2024, as a result of a number of factors.”
The factors include contributions from balances approved in the 2023-24 budget of £6m.
He said it will also be used to meet the projected overspend in the 2023-24 budget, early Retirement/Voluntary Redundancy costs incurred to support budget savings in the current year and to off-set the delayed delivery of a number of budget savings.
The SNP has already said it will include the council tax freeze in its budget proposal.
In her column in the Glasgow Times this week, council leader Susan Aitken said: “For Glasgow SNP, it’s a no-brainer that we’d grasp the opportunity to not have to pass our own constantly rising cost pressures on to Glasgow residents.”
Labour, the Greens and the Conservatives will each have the opportunity to present their budget proposals to the council when it meets next Thursday.
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