More than 6,000 Dundee City Council staff have been asked consider voluntary redundancy as the local authority seeks to claw back a staggering £23 million of savings.
The council’s finance spokesman Willie Sawers admitted all services face will be slashed because of the 3.5% cut in local authority revenue funding announced by the Scottish Government last month.
He said the financial black hole is the biggest challenge Dundee City Council has ever faced.
It had originally only expected to face cuts of £16 million in 2016/17 and another £12 million the year after that.
Mr Sawers said he hoped the savings could be achieved by reorganisation of council services and voluntary redundancies.
The council currently employs around 7,900 staff.
Because of a pledge to maintain teacher numbers, its 1400 teachers are not being asked to consider voluntary redundancy.
The full scale of the cuts facing the council has been outlined in a report to go before its policy and resourcescommittee next week.
It reveals the Scottish Government’s local government settlement will see the council’s budget reduced by 4.3% rather than the 1.6% as had originally been expected.
In cash terms, this leaves the council having to make £23 million of savings in 2016/17 rather than the £16 million it had initially planned for.
And the sum is only £5 million less that the £28 million of cuts the council had been bracing itself for over the next two years.
All council staff except teachers have already been sent letters asking them to consider voluntary redundancy in a bid to balance the books.
Council finance spokesman Willie Sawers said the council did not know what savings it will have to make in 2017/18 because the local government settlement has only been agreed for the next financial year.
But he admitted the council is nowfacing an unprecedented financial crisis and the taxpayers will inevitably notice changes to services although thecouncil is not yet contemplatingcompulsory redundancies.
“We are looking at restructuringservices and voluntary redundancy packages to minimise the impact on the public,” said Mr Sawers.
Mr Sawers blamed the cuts on theUK Government’s austerityagenda.
He said: “No SNP politician goes into government to impose these scale of cuts. People went into local government to improve things and to make things better.”
Asked if that was an admission council services would deteriorate in 2016/17, he said: “Some services will be delivered differently.
“The public will see changes but we will try to minimise the impact.”
The council tax freeze will be maintained next year and with Mr Sawers said it would need to rise by 39% if an increase was used to offset the budget cuts.
If the council did raise council tax, it would also forfeit the £70 million it receives from the Scottish Government for maintaining it.
“We cannot pretend that it is not going to be challenging,” he said.
“There are going to be changes to the way we achieve services but, critically, what we’ll be focusing on makingsure the impact of these changes will be kept to a minimum for the mostvulnerable.
“Protecting frontline services is and always will be our priority.”
Mr Sawers revealed council staff all received a letter on Tuesday offering voluntary redundancy.
Teachers are excepted because of a Scottish Government vow to maintain teacher numbers.
But he said there is no “ballparkFigure” for how many jobs they wantto shed and no decisions havebeen made on how services will be affected.
“We are not looking at X number of job losses, we are marrying together changes to how we deliver servicesalong with looking for voluntaryredundancies.
“Everyone other than teachers received a letter on Tuesday aboutvoluntary redundancies.”
He also said the council tax freeze, which has been in place for nine years, will be maintained.
The council’s capital budget is being re-profiled so it will receive £150 million less than originally planned, although the council will have this sum added to its capital budget for 2017 to 2020. He said this means projects such as the V&A will be unaffected by the deferred payment.
However, the report also warns the council will face further pressure on its budget in coming years, regardless of whether it successfully achieves £23 million of cuts in 2017/18.
Councillors will be asked to approve the new revenue budget at a meeting of the policy and resources committee on February 25.
Opposition councillors said Scottish Government Finance Secretary John Swinney should use new tax raising powers to increase income tax and ease the burden on local authorities.