Scottish Labour have revealed the cost of cuts in council funding to individual people across Scotland including Dumfries and Galloway.

Analysis commissioned by the party shows that SNP cuts in funding to council budgets by the Scottish Government since 2013-14 is the equivalent of £125 per head in Dumfries and Galloway. The Government grant to the council has fallen by £2,013 per person in 2013/14 to £1,887 per person in 2018/19.

South Scotland MSP Colin Smyth believes that the figures, provided by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe), show the price of austerity for individuals across the region.

Scottish Labour has persistently called on the SNP to use the tax powers of the Scottish Parliament to end austerity and invest in lifeline services.

In their recent budget, Dumfries and Galloway Council explained how they have had to make £86m of savings since 2010- with this year’s funding gap of £13.023m filled through a 3% rise in council tax and savings of £10.979m.

If the current policy of austerity from Government continues it is estimated the council will have to make further savings of £48m over the next three years.

Commenting on the figures, South Scotland MSP Colin Smyth said, “These stark figures reveal the cost of cuts in funding to councils by the SNP. In real terms that funding has fallen by £125 per person in Dumfries and Galloway over the past five years. Local people will rightly feel aggrieved that although they are paying more council tax this has purely been to cushion the massive cuts over the last two years. not to increase overall spending on local services because of the Government’s funding cuts. With such savage cuts from the Government its little wonder that more and more local lifeline services are having to be axed. In this year’s Scottish budget Labour would have used the tax powers of the Scottish Parliament to end austerity and invest in our lifeline services for the many not the few.”