Scottish Labour and RISE campaigners protest outside Clackmannanshire Council against "savage" cuts to services

Over 20 people, understood to be a mix of Scottish Labour and RISE campaigners, gathered outside the council's chambers as elected members were getting ready to discuss the budget.

Amongst those protesting were Craig Miller, Scottish Labour regional list candidate for Mid-Scotland & Fife and Bryan Quinn, who is on the regional list for RISE.

As the Advertiser reported earlier, council leader Les Sharp said that Westminster's “continued financial barrage against local government” has led to difficult decisions being made, but the council and Holyrood have adopted a no compulsory redundancy position.

Craig Miller (5th from left, Scottish Labour) and his campaigners outside the Patons Building

Mr Miller said that a 1.5 per cent cut has been passed onto the SNP Scottish Government by the Tories at Westminster and in turn, Holyrood passed on a five percent cut to Clackmannanshire Council.

The Labour candidate told the Advertiser the services cut will affect the most vulnerable in the community, with social services, education and third sector organisations losing out.

He said around 350 jobs, almost 14 per cent of the whole workforce, will have to be cut, recently the Clackmannanshire Joint Trade Union Committee estimated the figure to be 400.

Mr Miller suggested the SNP should reconsider Labour's proposals on the 1p tax increase and councillors should today reject the budget and come back with a fairer one.

Mr Quinn, RISE candidate for Mid-Scotland & Fife, said services and jobs are being cut because the government is “not willing to make the rich pay their share”.

Bryan Quinn (RISE) with his son, protesting outside the council chambers

He told the Advertiser that Labour's 1p increase wouldn't be enough, and said RISE wants to scrap the council tax and replace it with a fairer, local income-based tax – adding that the majority of people would be paying less.

He also called on councillors to defy the budget, adding: “If the government want cuts, they can implement them. We want our councillors to stand up for people.”

Mr Miller told the Advertiser: “These cuts are avoidable, Scottish Labour has proposed a 1 pence in the pound increase in taxes for those earning over £20,000 [per annum]. That means that we can avoid the savage and unfair cut [for] the most vulnerable that we are seeing pushed through by the SNP administration today.”

Regarding the Labour proposal of the tax increase, he said: “I think people will see it [as] a good idea today when they see what's coming out of this budget, when they see a £1.9 million cut to social services, when they see a cut to teaching assistants, when they see that 350 people may lose their jobs, when they see less money for libraries and a 7.1 per cent cut to the third sector - to organisations such as Rape Crisis, Citizen's Advice Bureau, Sauchie Active8.

“People rely upon these services and with a 1p increase we can fund these third sector organisations, they are doing great work, but they can't do the work that they are expected to do with less funding.

“[I would tell the council] to vote against the budget, go away, think again, say to their SNP government and the Scottish Parliament to reconsider the 1p tax rise and come back with a fairer, more progressive budget that re-distributes the wealth from the rich to the poorest.”

Mr Quinn said: “We don't want to see the services that people rely on and people's jobs cut, just because the government aren't willing to make the rich pay their share.

“We want a lot more than the 1p increase. We want to scrap the council tax completely because it's unfair, it's regressive, and we want to replace it with a local income-based tax.

“That would see the majority of people paying less money, but it would see the rich paying their fair share and that would more than cover any council budgets and it would allow us to have more money to invest in services. It would allow us to keep all of our council jobs.

“I would tell [the council] to defy the cuts. Tell the government that if they want to implement cuts, they can do it. I would tell them to set a no-cuts budget, and I would tell every council to do the same.

“If the government want cuts, they can implement them. We want our councillors to stand up for people.

“If you want people to stand up for your services, if you want people to stand against cuts, then RISE candidates will do that and that's why we are running this election and that's why we'll be running in the council elections again next year and we'll stand against cuts then too.”

The budget is currently being debated in the council chambers, keep an eye out to see what happened later...