THE SNP in North Ayrshire have welcomed Scotlands draft budget, which the Labour administration claimed will ‘literally rip the heart out of communities’.

Council Leader Joe Cullinane slammed the £17m deficit the council faces in the coming year.

However, the SNP have countered that North Ayrshire Council’s funding settlement will see a slight increase this year, to £267.887 million.

Labour said last Thursday’s draft budget leaves the biggest deficit in North Ayrshire Council’s budget in the local authority’s history.

SNP Finance Spokesperson Cllr Christina Larsen said: “I am pleased to once again see a slight increase in the proposed funding settlement for North Ayrshire Council.

“The Finance Secretary managed to avoid making cuts despite having to deal with more than £200 million to Scotland’s block grant, as announced by the Tories only last month.

“Apart from this funding settlement, North Ayrshire Council will of course also continue to be allocated its share of a variety of central resources throughout the year, such as the new £179 million of the Scottish Attainment Fund for 2018-19, including £120 million in Pupil Equity Funding to be spent across Scotland at the discretion of headteachers on closing the attainment gap.

“Other resources will include a share of the £243 million in 2018-19 to work further towards increasing fully funded early learning and childcare to 1,140 hours from 2020.”

“On top of that, the Labour administration has powers at their disposal to raise another £1.863 million if they opt to increase Council Tax by three per cent, giving North Ayrshire Council an overall real-terms increase in the funds at their disposal to support local services.”

But North Ayrshire Labour leader Joe Cullinane said: “This SNP budget leaves North Ayrshire Council facing the biggest deficit in its history.

He said: “It leaves our local services on life support. £73m has been cut from the Council’s budget since 2010 and we now face a huge deficit next year of £17m.

“After years of austerity there is no fat left in local government, these cuts will cut straight to the bone.

“This SNP budget will quite literally rip the heart out of communities across Scotland with everything from libraries to community centres, schools to elderly care and anti-poverty initiatives all under threat.”

“We were promised that Early Years expansion, which we support, would be fully funded yet our capital budget is being cut to help fund it leaving some local projects facing delay or being scrapped altogether.

“When you cut through the spin on NHS funding what you are left with is NHS Ayrshire and Arran facing tens of millions of pounds of cuts again next year.

“And on public sector pay it is an absolute sham. Not only is the pay policy below inflation it only applies to a fraction of public sector workers in Scotland.

“As UNISON have said, a pay policy is only an aspiration if it is not funded and the financial settlement for Councils clearly does not provide funding for pay.

“So is it the SNP’s policy that our school cleaners, janitors and bin collectors are to have their pay increase funded by their colleagues losing their job?

“This is nothing more than a Tory-lite budget which cuts jobs and services whilst announcing a weak and timid tax policy which has been built to fit a shallow headline to counter right-wing Tory attacks on tax.

“It gives a new tax break to business whilst creating a loophole that will see top earners paying less.

“All the while local services here in North Ayrshire face the axe due to cuts.”