Glasgow City Council over budget by £25m already as costs soar

Glasgow City Council has blown its budget by £25 million already this year with agency costs and energy bills among demands leading to overspending.

Rising electricity charges, paying agencies overtime for rubbish collection and higher street lighting costs are among reasons for a £15m overspend in the council’s neighbourhoods, regeneration and sustainability department between April and September.

The council’s school spending is spilling over by £8.9m – caused by more staff being needed to meet pupil’s additional support for learning (ASL) needs and rises in taxi costs. One taxi contract has jumped by 19%.

Treasurer Ricky Bell expressed fear the council could go bust in the future if funding is cut every year – although he insisted the finances are nowhere near that currently. He made a plea for funding to the UK and Scottish Governments.

Speaking at the council’s city administration committee, he said: “We cannot continually be in a position where we just salami slice our services. That is not what we came here to do. All of us came to try and make Glasgow a better place for all its citizens but we cannot do that with two hands tied behind our back.”

He made a plea to the UK and Scottish Government to fund services.

Councillor Bell added: “We cannot continue on the road we are going on. You see what is happening down south. You see how dreadful it is for English councils were some of them have already gone bust.

“We are nowhere near that yet but if you continually cut the budget every single year there is an inevitability about the road we are going to end up on.”

He was replying to comments from Labour councillor Elaine McDougall who stated: “Nearly 31 years in here I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”

She pointed out she had previously asked if the departments were going to be able too close the gaps in the overspend and if there was a recovery plan.

She also said Audit Scotland felt there was a weakness about not having a proper financial management team.

Director of finance Martin Booth said the level of inflation experienced over recent years hasn’t been seen for a long time.”

Explaining how contracts were rising by double digits, with one school taxi contract surging by 19%, he said: “When that happens in year it is difficult to do anything about it.”

He said auditors expressed concern that the team needed more resources but that would mean making cuts elsewhere and the comment didn’t relate to the team’s effectiveness.

Explaining more about the details of the overspend earlier in the meeting, councillor Bell said: “This position mainly reflects overspends in neighbourhoods, regeneration and sustainability due to increased staff costs, transport costs, property costs and a shortfall in income.

“Overspends in education are due to pupil roll increases and greater demand for the ASL sector and inflationary increases in transport. The overspend is partly offset by an underspend in financial services mainly due to an underspend in the award of non domestic rates empty property relief.”

An official told the city administration committee there are non controllable costs including increases in contract prices and it is “hugely challenging.”

She said a high turnover in staff leads to agency costs. She said measures are being undertaken to deal with controllable costs.

Spend on social work services has reached £3.2m, which is the responsibility of the Glasgow City Integration Joint board which oversees the Health and Social Care Partnership.