A SECOND council has announced plans for major cuts to services amid warnings post-referendum Scotland will see a dramatic squeeze on public spending.
West Lothian Council is facing a £30 million-plus financial black hole in the coming three years, insisting it has little room to manoeuvre without major changes to how it does business.
The Labour-run authority has begun a public consultation on where it can find the savings.
It comes after Renfrewshire declared it would need to make cuts and savings estimated to be around £30m up until 2018. Around 100 jobs are expected to go at the authority.
Sources in other councils have said they are expecting the two years after 2016 to be the toughest local government has faced since the squeeze on public finances began in earnest around 2010.
One senior local government figure said: "The referendum has shielded Scotland. Why else have the cuts been worse south of the border? All that will change now."
Professor Richard Kerley, of Edinburgh's Queen Margaret University, a leading expert on local government, said a rush of councils announcing significant budget deficits was likely in the months ahead.
He said the 18 month run up to September's referendum had seen "sticking plasters" placed over issues which could reflect badly on the Scottish Government and that the council tax freeze and a potential replacement would become key issues around the 2016 Scottish elections.
He said: "It won't surprise me in any way if we see a number of authorities making statements similar to Renfrewshire and West Lothian."
West Lothian's plans include a series of proposals impacting on nursery provision through to funding for public transport and social care and a hike in charges.
It said, like other local authorities, inflation and rising fuel and energy costs were adding to the overall bill of providing services.
The £30m comes on top of over £40m of cuts already made in West Lothian over the past five years.
Council leader John McGinty said: "No-one should underestimate the difficult decisions that lie ahead.
"We don't have any choice in that we must reduce spending and increase our income so that we can meet our £30.4m budget gap."
Following last week's Budget announcement Iain Gray, Scottish Labour's finance secretary, accused the Scottish Government of "failing to tackle the underfunding of local government".
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