The Scottish Green group on Glasgow City Council has a proposed Budget that will result in no more teacher cuts and that teacher numbers will begin to return to 2023 levels next year.
We are withdrawing future planned education cuts and ensuring that additional Scottish Government funding will be used to increase the number of teachers working in Glasgow’s schools.
We recognise the significant impact of Glasgow EIS members in their campaign against education cuts across the city.
Parents, teachers and trade unions have been rightly raising the alarm on funding for teachers as if we want better outcomes for our children, we need more investment in education, not less.
Green councillors have written to the Glasgow branch of the EIS union informing them that our budget proposals will stop and reverse the teacher cuts in Glasgow.
Glasgow’s Green councillors will stop any cuts to education across Glasgow and seek to deliver a better deal for our teachers, children and young people.
Through this year’s budget process, we have put much-needed investment back into frontline services.
Greens are prioritising our schools and nurseries.
During the last year, councillors have been making the case to the Scottish Government for more investment in Glasgow and especially more funding for education.
Thankfully, the Scottish Government have provided the funds needed for more teachers.
While we will be using this year’s Budget to invest in our city’s schools, Greens will continue to call for fair council funding.
There are ongoing financial pressures on the council from inflation to higher costs such as the increase to employers’ national insurance contributions.
The proposed funding from Scottish Government will not cover additional Employers National Insurance costs, and the city council still faces an extremely challenging financial position as councillors set the budget for the next year.
Currently, the council tax is one of the few options councils have to raise money to protect essential frontline services.
The Scottish Greens have already delivered important reforms, like doubling Council Tax on holiday homes and allowing councils to develop plans for tourist levies to raise money for local services.
Councillors can welcome commitments to the New Deal with Scottish Government.
We support the continuing work on a fiscal framework and plans to deliver new revenue raising powers.
We know that the Council Tax is a broken system and it needs to be replaced rather than reformed.
It is time to replace it with a fairer and more progressive system that would see most households paying less while the wealthiest would pay more.
We will push for the council to publish annual budget proposals early so that information can be effectively scrutinised.
This is needed to improve the transparency of existing spending plans and ensure more people’s voices are heard in budget decision-making.
