Background: Populist move is forcing many authorities into drastic efforts to balance the books, write Stewart Paterson and Gerry Braiden.

STEWART PATERSON and GERRY BRAIDEN

Like the old adage about a free lunch, council services, including education, social work and leisure, come at a price.

As household budgets across Scotland reap the benefits of the populist SNP commitment to freeze council tax bills, the true cost of the policy was being counted yesterday in terms of jobs, service reductions and increased service charges.

Despite a financial package to soften the blow of inflation, all but a handful of local authorities have been forced into some draconian, and well-disguised, measures to balance the books.

As 19 councils announced their spending plans, publicly at least, there was much back slapping that their citizens would not be paying any more when bills kick in in April, but when probed, the admissions of "natural wastage" and "efficiency savings" were revealed.

In more blunt parlance this amounts to little more than job culls and service cuts.

With Glasgow setting the trend earlier in the week with the announcement that 425 jobs would be shed to help meet the costs of the freeze, several others confirmed that jobs would go.

Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire, South Ayrshire, Fife, Aberdeen, Dundee, Borders and Highland all admitted jobs would be lost, although compulsory redundancies were thought unlikely.

In Aberdeen, leisure facilities face reduced operating hours with the potential closure of swimming baths.

Lewis Macdonald, Labour MSP for Aberdeen Central, said: "SNP councillors and their administration partners have decided to cut vital services in Aberdeen in an attempt to balance the books.

"Cuts are set to hit older people, young families and the homeless, the very people who need public services the most."

The Liberal Democrat/ Conservative administration in neighbouring Aberdeenshire said the freeze has been achieved without making cuts to services or jobs.

Scottish Borders Council will be shedding jobs across its housing, social work, planning and regeneration departments, reducing staffing costs in teaching through retirement and replacement by younger, cheaper teachers, cutting overtime payments, and using trainees in some sections of the authority.

The council, which has a budget of £249m for the next financial year, has yet to specify how many posts will go but insists it will be done through "natural wastage" rather than compulsory redundancies.

Borders Council deputy leader Neil Calvert said: "We have come up with a good plan to maintain and improve our services, while making efficiency savings of £4.4m, which will be re-invested in our services."

Up to 100 posts could be lost in East Renfrewshire through voluntary redund-ancy, retirements and not filling vacant posts to help with £900,000 of savings.

Renfrewshire will also lose staff, with numbers still being worked on, but redeployment and voluntary redundancy are mooted.

Highland Council's budget of £568.6m includes an extra £25.6m of ring-fenced money from central government. The budget comes with a package of cuts totalling £12.7m across the council.

Up to 130 jobs are expected to go either through non-filling of posts, early retirement or voluntary redundancy, with exact details to be clarified, but education expected to be worst affected.

Andrew Stewart, regional secretary of the EIS, said: "At this precise moment we do not have a firm number. But I was advised at a briefing last week that it would be around 40 teaching posts and around 90 non-teaching posts."

Fife Council has a savings programme of £12m, including a reduction in staff of between 20 and 30 posts.

Council leader Peter Grant said the settlement was good for Fife and the budget allowed the council to invest in services. In Dundee, 12 jobs are to go, with education providing savings.

Moray Council will raise an additional £174,000 by increasing leisure and community centre charges, and car parking charges will bring in an extra £100,000.

Union leaders said services across the country would suffer as a result of the budgets agreed.

Alex McLuckie, GMB's Scottish organiser, warned the freeze could potentially lead to the biggest shake-up of employment in local government since the re-organisation in 1996.

He said: "We are not being told the impact on jobs but we know cuts are being hidden away in these budgets. What we will do now is continue to pursue clarity on what this means for jobs and job losses.

"The unions have not been included in this process and if it's all been so wonderful why are jobs going?"

Dave Watson, Scottish organiser for Unison, added: "This was always going to be a tight budget but job cuts mean services suffering, and Unison will be in the forefront of defending services."

Both North and South Lanarkshire said there would be no impact on staffing levels, as did Inverclyde, Aberdeenshire and Orkney.

John Swinney, Finance Secretary, said: "This is welcome news for taxpayers across Scotland who have borne unacceptable and punishing rises in the council tax over recent years.

"For too long, the day when their council tax is set has been a major concern for all those who have to pay this unfair tax."

Six councils, including Edinburgh and Stirling, have still to set their budgets.