Across Scotland, councils have lost £7.8billion from cuts to grants – based on the general revenue grant and non-domestic rate income, the two main components of government funding for councils – and South Lanarkshire’s share, he says, is £483million.

Joe Fagan, the Scottish Labour Party candidate for East Kilbride for the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections, told Lanarkshire Live this should be a source of “immense shame to MSPs who voted to impose these cuts on our communities year after year”.

And he has warned that the real impact of council cuts is likely to be greater due to levels of ring-fencing and directed expenditure.

Councillor Joe Fagan said: “What these figures show is that even on one of the Scottish Government’s preferred measures of council funding, South Lanarkshire Council has suffered from a cumulative cut of £483million in real terms. It’s absolutely horrifying.

“This should be a source of immense shame to the MSPs who voted to impose these cuts on our communities year after year.

“I warned them about the scale of these cuts, trade unions warned them about the scale of these cuts, campaigners across the country warned them about the scale of these cuts – but they heaped their own brand of austerity onto our communities anyway and now they must be confronted with the consequences of their actions.

“Central grants to councils account for almost 80 per cent of our council’s revenue budget.

“The increase in funding we extracted from the Scottish Government this year does not even begin to make up for the spending power lost over more than decade – it’s only about six per cent of the total cumulative cut since 2013/14.”

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The SNP Government has been blamed for steep council tax rises after years of funding cuts left local authorities struggling to deliver essential services.

Labour said a total of £7.8billion will have been cut from core council budgets between 2013-14 and 2025-26.

It comes at a time households face paying the steepest increases in council tax bills for 20 years.

Local authorities say the increases are necessary in order to safeguard services after many years of restricted funding.

But Labour today insisted the blame for the rises should lie with the Scottish Government.

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Cllr Fagan added: “I cannot emphasise enough that these figures do not fully take into account levels of government ring-fenced and directed expenditure and so the reality of core funding cuts to councils is likely to be even worse.

“This isn’t just austerity, it’s one of the worst forms of austerity Scotland has ever known – made here in Scotland by the Scottish Government, even at times when their own budget was rising. Council-cutting Scottish Budgets have degraded local services, fuelling apathy in politics and social harms in the wider community.

“Things did not have to be this way. The Scottish Government could have adopted a Barnett formula for councils, instead they chose to balance the books on the backs of our councils and communities – our frontline workers, our care system, our local environment – and they drove cuts and closures, strikes and decline all over Scotland.

“No other part of the public sector in Scotland has been treated as badly as local government. Enough is enough.

“We cannot let SNP Ministers duck and dive or deflect the blame for what they’ve done to Scotland’s councils and, by extension, to key workers and vital community services.

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“We are fighting back against the cuts, working to secure a fairer share of investment and build back our communities.

“There has to be an injection of fair funding into the system. Rotten budget settlements have dragged our communities down for years, it’s time to lift them up again and invest fairly in the future of South Lanarkshire.”

In response, Finance Secretary Shona Robison said: “The total local government finance settlement has increased by £5billion or 49.9 per cent between 2013-14 and 2025-26.

“The Scottish Government’s settlements from the UK Government have suffered a decade of austerity with average real terms cuts of over five per cent, equating to a loss of £18 billion.

“We recognise the crucial role councils and their employees play in communities across Scotland.

“That’s why the Scottish Government has made a record £15 billion available for 2025-26, a real terms increase of 5.5 per cent compared with last year. This includes £823.9 million for South Lanarkshire Council, an increase of £63.7 million.”

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