A Fife union leader has warned that vital services such as refuse collections, roads maintenance and home care are under threat by local government funding cuts.
In a letter to Scotland’s First Minister, Unison Fife branch chairman Colin Paterson said day-to-day services ensuring the health and wellbeing of the public cannot continue with the slashed budgets proposed.
He urged Nicola Sturgeon to meet local government representatives to hear first-hand the “very real damage” cuts were doing.
Mr Paterson said Fife members in the council and other public sector bodies reacted with disbelief to John Swinney’s forecast of further significant cuts for local government.
Fife Council already faces making £91 million of savings over the next three years on top of a £50m equal pay liability.
Mr Paterson said: “The scale of cuts to council budgets is such that even the most creative measures will not be enough to prevent cuts in services which are crucially important to the well-being of our communities and the most vulnerable within them.”
He said Fife Council cuts to services including shopping delivery removed a vital lifeline to some of the most vulnerable members of the community and there was not a service in the council which had escaped multiple changes over the last eight years.
Part-time, low-paid female workers in jobs such as cleaning and catering had been hardest hit, he said, in the axing of 4,000 jobs by the local authority since 2008.