At Prime Minister’s Questions recently Mark raised the issue of the budget cuts being imposed by the SNP/Lib Dem City Council for next year. To read the question and the response from the Prime Minister click here.

This is at a time when the grant that the City Council receives from the Scottish Government to pay for services is increasing as did the Scottish Government’s own budget. There is no financial justification for the cuts.

The UK Government has pledged to protect spending on frontline education and health services but the Scottish Government refuses to ring-fence spending in the same way so the Council can simply spend it on whatever it likes.

The grant that the City Council’s receives to pay for services will increase in 2010/11 by more than £14m.

As well as raising the issue in Parliament, Mark has been supporting local campaigns against the cuts which will mean the closure of primary schools in North Edinburgh and leisure centre crèches.

What are the facts and figures?

Is the UK Government cutting spending on education and health?

NO – the UK government pledged to protect spending on frontline services such as schools, hospitals and the police.

It will actually be increasing funding for schools and hospitals in 2010/11, and shortly before Christmas, the Chancellor Alistair Darling also guaranteed increased spending on front-line NHS services and schools for the two years after 2011 as well.

For example, education for three to 16-year-olds will see a 0.7% real terms increase; education for 16 to 19-year-olds will see a 0.9% real terms increase.

What about frontline services in Scotland?

Devolution rightly leaves it up to the Scottish Government to decide whether to make a similar pledge to protect spending on education and health but it has not done so. Unless they make such a commitment, the pledge will only apply in England.

Has the Scottish Government’s Budget gone down?

NO - midst a global recession, the Scottish Government budget will be higher than ever before in 2010-11.

The total Scottish Government budget will increase in real terms by £1.0 billion in 2009-10 (equivalent to 3.5%) and £0.2 billion in 2010-11 (equivalent to 0.5%).  In cash terms, the Scottish Government will have £943 million extra in 2010/11.

Is the funding that the City Council receives to pay for services going down?

NO - the grant that the City Council’s receives from the Scottish Government will increase in 2010/11 from £796.856million to £810.885 million – a rise of more than £14m (1.76%).

This means that the Council has never had more funding at its disposal, and has almost double what the first post-devolution Council had to spend in 1999/2000.

Why is the Council cutting essential services such as schools then?

Good question!