ARE we willing to fund our essential public services to a level where they are able to make a difference?

At Holyrood this week we heard how councils will need to make hundreds of millions of pounds worth of savings next year, with Glasgow alone seeking to find £74m.

Much of the council budget goes on social work and social care, looking after the most vulnerable people, in need of support in our city.

That will suffer as it already has as a result of cutbacks in recent years.

A previous committee heard how Glasgow was facing a “tidal wave of demand” for social care services with a growing elderly population.

Health boards have also told the Scottish Government they cannot balance the books this year with the levels of savings they are expected to achieve and resulting closures and downgrading of services is causing concern and distress in communities.

Every politician you speak to will tell you how much they value and cherish the NHS.

The same affection and commitment however is not afforded to council services. They are seen as wasteful and bureaucratic, ripe for budget cuts.

But the front line staff in council care and social work services are most often looking after the very same people as the NHS working towards the same outcome.

They are trying to help people with difficult to manage conditions, proving support at home to allow people their independence or in care homes when they are no longer able to live at home.

And like he NHS they are doing so under increasingly difficult conditions with the double whammy of increasing demand and decreasing resources.

It would be refreshing if we heard politicians at election times competing with one another to say how much safer council services would be in their hands.

Local authorities will be able to increase council tax next year for the first time in almost a decade.

If they do it will not provide huge amounts more for the city, merely make up for a little of what has been cut in previous and current years.

If they don’t, they risk being told not to complain when they budget allocation is cut as they could raise more cash themselves is they need it.

The same argument could be applied to the Scottish Government regarding the NHS and all the other public services it funds as it deals with another looming budget cut from Westminster later this month.

If it needs more money the option is now there for Scottish ministers to raise tax in Scotland to pay for the services it wants to provide.

The decision to do so or not to will not be based on levels of provision but on political grounds of being seen as tax raising or otherwise.

The time is coming when the level of sustained cuts year on year is eroding essential public services to a dangerous level.

We must decide what services we need and want to provide through our councils and NHS and then raise the necessary amount to allow the staff to deliver them properly.