Glasgow’s SNP council imposes a cuts budget with the support of the Greens

Report from Matt Dobson

Glasgow’s minority SNP council has passed an austerity cuts budget with support from the Greens. This follows the SNP and Greens agreeing a cuts budget for the Scottish government. This is the first SNP budget to be passed in Glasgow after the SNP won the council election last year, ending four decades of Labour control.

The budget included service cuts of £10 million to social work, “efficiency savings” and “service reform”. The SNP council leadership accepted, without any resistance or campaigning for more funding, the settlement from Holyrood. Glasgow workers are to receive only the 3% pay rise agreed by the Scottish parliament instead of the 6.5% demanded by council workers’ unions. 

Glasgow residents are also to be hit by a council tax rise of 3% (the maximum allowed by the SNP government), increased charges for nursery care, parking and refuse uplift. Nor is there to be any reversal of the several hundred million cut from the city over the last five years. 

In an unprecedented approach, the SNP  administration did not meet the council trade unions before setting the budget, effectively rejecting the joint trade union’s demands for a no cuts budget based on the full utilisation of financial powers such as borrowing, use of reserves, recapitalisation and the ending of PFI and a mass campaign for more funding for Glasgow. In effect the new boss is the same as the old boss, with the SNP adopting a similar approach of implementing Tory cuts rather than defying them. 

Trade union campaigning gains concessions 

The SNP and the Greens did agree, as part of the budget, to meet the demand of the trade unions to break up the unpopular ALEO, Cordia and bring it back “in house”. Cordia has been the focus of recent bitter industrial action by Glasgow Unison whose janitors were successful in winning a 6% pay rise after a year in dispute.

While welcomed by the unions, it is not clear from the SNP/Green proposals whether all Cordia staff will be brought back in house or be put into other ALEO’s such as Glasgow Life.

Socialist Party Scotland supports the Glasgow trade unions in their demand that all ALEO services are brought back in house and run on a democratic accountable basis. 

In the run up to the budget there was also campaigning by the GMB union against a possible cut to refuse workers who are currently on temporary contracts, which the SNP stepped back from. It’s clear the SNP administration are anxious to avoid a confrontation with the trade unions who have a record of fighting. It is however significant that no details were present in the budget on how the settlements for equal pay, which will run into several hundreds of millions, will be funded. During the budget setting meeting signs of the possible collision with the workforce if the SNP don’t pay up and present a viable fair job evaluation scheme were evident as the SNP’s council treasurer attacked the trade unions for threatening strike action. Already a demonstration of 600 has taken place over equal pay on February 10th. 

Labour no alternative 

The opposition Labour group attempted to present their alternative budget as a “radical peoples budget”. However, this has no credibility. The Labour group is still dominated by the right wing and this meant Labour also rejected the trade unions fighting no cuts budget alternative. Labour group leader Frank McAveety and other Blairite councillors were booed and harangued at the budget protest by council workers and service users who remember the massive cuts and anti-trade union behaviour of the last administration.

There were some laudable proposals in the Labour alternative budget such as the mitigation of the welfare cap in Glasgow through discretionary housing benefit payments and a doubling of the school clothing grant. But these were not linked to an overall no cuts budget and fighting for more funding so would have meant cuts in other areas. Labour also proposed raising the council tax, service cuts and efficiency savings. The left in Labour must act by deselecting right wing councillors and adopt the no cuts budget position of the council trade union’s in order to regain credibility. 

It is a measure of the anger against the level of austerity implemented in Glasgow that even the Tories proposed the reopening of the Accord Centre, closed by Labour five years ago. 

Over 200 trade unionists and community campaigners protested the budget setting meeting on 22nd February, with Socialist Party Scotland in support. If the SNP and Labour are not willing to defy Tory cuts, Socialist Party Scotland will continue to fight for a genuine anti-austerity alternative by standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.