ELDERLY and residential care budgets, along with education jobs, teaching materials and school transport face major cuts as another Scots council lays out its grim financial forecast.

South Ayrshire Council has published new figures showing it needs to make cuts and savings of almost £17 million over the next three years, with jobs and frontline services feeling the impact.

It has only identified where just over half the money in that time will come from, with core areas like schools budgets and disability and elderly care taking major hits.

The council will still need to find around another £7.5m and said it could dip into its reserves to balance the books.

It may be entitled to use up to £10m.

Launching its Reshaping Scotland series recently, The Herald revealed how thousands of jobs face the axe and a range of frontline local services reduced or withdrawn as recent figures show Scotland's councils approaching a financial black hole of around £1 billion in the next three years.

Glasgow has announced it needs to find over £100m in two years "just to keep the lights on", the level of savings needed by Highland Council from 2016 to 2019 has rocketed from £13.3m to £46.3m, while almost 1,000 jobs are to be lost at Edinburgh City Council in a services overhaul aimed at cutting costs of £107m.

South Ayrshire is also asking the public its views on a raft of controversial cuts.

Amongst the proposals the council has asked for feedback on are reducing teaching material, hiking the charges for burial and cremation, cutting school swimming lessons and having head teachers work across some smaller schools.

It has also asking views on proposed cuts to its residential care budget of £600,000, an additional £500,000 from elderly care and axing school transport from some areas.

South Ayrshire Council leader Bill McIntosh, said: "That's a real challenge as we only have a limited amount of money to spend and there's lots of demands for the services we provide, so it's vital we make the right decisions about where our money goes.

"We understand the impact the decisions we make have on those people and that's why we're seeking the views of our communities on the savings proposals that will have a more direct impact on them - for example, by changing what level of service we deliver or the cost of delivering that service."

Latest cuts agreed include cutting the budget for people with learning disabilities within supported living by £800,000, chopping £300,000 from the pot used for school repairs and saving a further £250,000 by axing jobs within the running of the council's education services.