COUNCIL services are being returned to the worst days of the Thatcherite squeezes of the 1980s because of cuts by the SNP government, Andy Kerr, Labour's local government spokesman, claimed yesterday.
Mr Kerr told the Scottish Labour Conference in Aviemore that the Scottish Government had delivered the worst settlement for local government since devolution but was refusing to take the blame.
The conference was told of cuts imposed by counci
ls in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and West Dunbartonshire.
Mr Kerr said: "These councils have returned us to the days of Thatcherism, with cuts and compulsory redundancies not seen since the Eighties."
The former finance minister said SNP ministers had built up a "façade" of co-operation with local government by forging a concordat, based on the council-tax freeze.
But he warned: "Behind that façade lies the danger of Scottish local government being held responsible for the delivery of the SNP's ill-conceived, badly costed manifesto promises."
The cuts were taken up by other speakers. Anne Begg, the Labour MP for Aberdeen South, focused on Aberdeen, where the council has to trim £27 million from its planned budget.
She said: "The lives of thousands of people will be ruined by what the SNP and the Lib Dems are doing in Aberdeen .
They are taking (the money] from the people who cannot fight back, they have managed to pick fights with children, the elderly, disabled people and the homeless.
West Dunbartonshire Council faces cuts of £1.29 million over the next three years and in the capital, schools and nurseries had been threatened with closure and arts funding has been slashed because of the freeze.
But Christina McKelvie, the SNP MSP for Central Scotland, said the Labour-led South Lanarkshire Council, in Mr Kerr's constituency, had welcomed its £692 million settlement.
She added: "This is a huge embarrassment for Andy Kerr. His very own councillors have undermined his claims."
The full article contains 325 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
