HUNDREDS of voluntary sector organisations across Glasgow will take a multi-million pound hammering in the next two years as the city council unveils its budget for the next two years.

Confirming 1500 jobs will go in the next 12 months as it looks to make unprecedented savings, the council announced the grant to support around 1250 third sector groups would be cut by £6.15million in the next financial year, rising to £7.75m by 2018.

The move also sees the council end its funding of 100 Police Scotland officers for the city.

With over £130million to make in cuts and savings over the next two years, a raft of community centres are also facing closure with a £1.4m saved to balance the books.

Announcing that 1500 jobs would go over the next financial year the council said it was committed to no compulsory redundancies and that targets would be achieved "solely through natural wastage and the redeployment of staff to ensure services have the workforce they need".

As The Herald revealed last Saturday, the council's pioneering jobs scheme set up as part of the Commonwealth Games legacy has had funding cut by £2m, with wage subsidies reduced from a year to nine months.

The cost of breakfast clubs for school children will also double, going from £1 to £2, while janitors will be cut from one per school to four per five schools.

The city's hugely popular Glasgow Loves Christmas events will have funding reduced by £800,000, the council's magazine for residents is to axed, and public toilets will see a charge of 20p introduced.

Elsewhere, a number of pledges from the ruling Labour administration's last manifesto have been binned, including the free golf for over 60s with a saving of £100,000 and subsidised bus services. Only the route to the Riverside Museum survives that particular cut.

Other headlines include cutting the grants it gives to the trust running Glasgow's museums and leisure facilities as part of £10m savings, garden maintenance will be reduced to save £1.5m, while schools, museums, libraries and office buildings will be cleaned less often and to a lower standard to save £700,000.

Support for the Theatre Royal will be removed and grants for the King’s Theatre and Pollok House reduced by 10 per cent.
Prioritised graffiti removal for areas experiencing a higher level of anti-social behaviour will also be removed.

The council faces a spending gap of £130mover the next two years, with £83m of that figure falling in the next 12 months. However the council has used £25m from its reserves, meaning it needs to make £58m in savings and cuts in 2016/2017.

The plans unveiled as the meeting commenced make up barely £19m of that with more expected to unfold as further details are unveiled.

One source said the full impact of the budget cuts would only emerge in weeks ahead with much of the savings falling under 'transformational change', procurement and personnel headlines.   

Council leader Frank McAveety said: “The £130m cuts we face over the next two years are not just cuts from Westminster.
“Glasgow has had a double whammy of Holyrood cuts piled on top of those from Westminster.

“When I became leader the city faced a cuts bill of £103m. Now its £130m. Make no mistake this is a direct result of the Scottish Government’s budget cuts.”

He added: “The Scottish Government is passing on a bigger share of the cuts to local government than those being passed on to it from the UK Government. While the Scottish Government budget was cut by 1.5% by Westminster here in Glasgow our budget faces a 4.4% cut from Holyrood. The result can be figured in tens of millions.”