Parking charges and school meals to rise in Glasgow

Meals in schools are to rise by 10p a day to £2.10 to raise £70,000 over the next two years.

Charges for multi-storey car parks, pay and display parking and residents' visitors parking will also go up to raise £3.5 million in the next year alone.

And Glasgow Life will be expected to raise millions of pounds more in income.

For car parking, the SNP budget includes raising around £2.5m extra from on-street pay and display parking.

It includes an extra £558,000 from the city centre and inner zone and £1.9m from outer zones.

And almost half a million pounds is to be raised from multi-storey car parking.

Over three years it is planned to raise an extra £7.3m from the on-street parking charges.

A budget was passed after the SNP and Green groups reached a deal and voted together for a budget with £107m of savings over the next three years.

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There will be an increase in the bulk uplift charge from 2025 onwards to raise an extra £82,000.

More than half a million pounds will be saved from the City Building apprenticeship funding “to reflect current numbers and partnership arrangements with Wheatley Group”.

Council tax will remain the same, as the SNP administration accepted the funding from the Scottish Government to fund a freeze with cash given to compensate instead of a 5% rise.

Proposing the budget, City Treasurer Richard Bell said it was: “The hardest budget he has had to set.”

He added: “The salami slicing has to come to an end. There’s almost nothing left to cut.”

He called for the ability to raise income from people coming to Glasgow through a visitor levy or tourist tax, congestion charging and workplace parking charges.

He said it would: “Hopefully raise additional income from those who come to our city who are not Glaswegians.”

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Bell said: “The cost-of-living crisis has fallen on the shoulders of the most disadvantaged Glaswegians. They rely on the services we provide” which said were being “hollowed out by austerity”.

The biggest package of cuts/savings comes in a “service redesign and future income generation” saving more than £10m in each of the next three years, totalling £31.1m.

The redesign package includes changes to waste management, the roll-out of bin hubs and “education service reform”.

It states: “This combines several service redesign options which will either generate additional revenue or realise efficiency savings over the course of the three-year budget period.”

It also sets up a project team to “progress business cases to utilise current and upcoming powers from the Scottish Government that have the potential to generate additional revenue for the city.”

Labour said the “service redesign” means there will be fewer teachers which will affect attainment in schools.

Jill Brown, presenting the Labour amendment, said all the parties' proposals would have an impact on education.

The Labour budget proposal also put forward “reform of education services” which totalled £31.9m of savings over three years.

Brown said: “There is no sugar coating the drastic budget cuts that the SNP/Green Scottish Government have not only passed on to Glasgow City Council this year but year on year for the last ten years and more.”

She added: “A £107.7m funding gap, when services are already decimated by years of cuts, is a mountain to climb.

“Let me be clear though the precarious financial position of Scotland’s local authorities including Glasgow lies squarely at the feet of the Scottish Government, and of the SNP administration in this chamber who accept the crumbs off the table of the SNP in Holyrood.

“Since 2017 when the SNP formed the Administration Glasgow City Council has had £250m of cuts to its budget.”

It is also envisaged that Glasgow Life will increase its income by £7.1m over three years.