TIME and time again it has been Glasgow that has led the way.

 

From the delivery of the largest apprenticeship scheme in the UK to being the first council to pay and promote the Living Wage, it is Glasgow that has consistently set the political agenda.

We were the first Scottish council to secure a transformative City Deal, paving the way for a £1.13billion investment in transport links and support for skills and new businesses in the Clyde Valley over the next 20 years, creating 28,000 permanent jobs and a further 15,000 in the construction industry.

Over 5,500 people have gained a job or apprenticeship thanks to our flagship £50million Glasgow Guarantee employability programme - for young people graduates, care leavers, armed forces veterans and people aged 50 and older - and we have embarked on an ambitious £250million refurbishment of our primary school estate.

We are the powerhouse of the Scottish economy, with 400,000 jobs based within the city.

We are home to some 31,000 business and 18,000 private enterprises and Glasgow generates £18billion to the national economy every single year.

But we've had to achieve all this despite the fact that in every single year since 2007 the government in Edinburgh has reduced Glasgow's share of the available local government budget in Scotland.

It's startling but true that if Glasgow received the same percentage share of the available Scottish local government budget in 2015/16 as we did in 2007/08 then we would have an additional £109 million to invest in public services this year alone.

We get a smaller slice of the cake year-on-year.

That is money which funds schools and nurseries, care for the elderly, libraries, cleansing and roads.

We are prepared to take our share of the pain but it's galling that this money is in the budget but is being directed to other parts of the country like Perthshire.

We have shown we can deliver. That is why we are leading the calls to have more powers devolved from both Westminster and Holyrood to a city level.

We know our problems better than anyone else and we know best how to solve them.

We also are campaigning for a fair deal from the Edinburgh Government when it comes to the budget.

MY administration recently changed our contracts policies to reward those companies who demonstrate that they offer real community benefits, pay the living wage, don't employ staff on exploitative zero hours contracts, and provide their staff with employment and training opportunities.

We want to do even more which is why we need more powers to be devolved from the Edinburgh parliament down to city and local level.

Not only will this allow us to create jobs and grow the economy, it will help us to address poverty and inequality in a way that national government simply isn't doing at the moment.

That is in everyone's interest not least the people of Glasgow.