Swingeing SNP cuts to council budgets will lead to job losses among teachers, Kezia Dugdale has warned.
The Scottish Labour leader told First Minister Nicola Sturgeon that the Scottish Government’s budget would increase pressure on local authority coffers.
The £350million reduction formed the central part of the last First Minister’s Questions before Christmas.
Ms Dugdale said: “The budget was a chance to take a different path to the failed agenda of the Tories, but instead the SNP decided to just manage austerity.
“John Swinney’s budget pulled the rug out from under the councils that build our schools and are vital to the education of our children.
“The reality is that Nicola Sturgeon can’t guarantee the SNP Government’s budget won’t result in job losses for our specialist teachers, class room assistants, janitors and office staff.
“Under the SNP Government the number of qualified teachers in our nurseries has fallen, the gap between the richest and the rest remains as wide as ever and the number of teachers in our schools has fallen by 4,300.
“Yet the SNP’s response to all of that is to cut, cut and cut again.
“It looks like the SNP Government is content for the next generation to pay the price of austerity.”
Ms Sturgeon defended her government’s record on education.
She said: “We have made our choices in the budget.
“Those choices are to protect the national health service, to protect social care, to protect educational attainment, to protect colleges, to protect university research and free tuition, to protect the police, to protect free personal care, to protect household budgets and to protect against Tory cuts through the welfare fund and by mitigating the bedroom tax.”
Finance Secretary John Swinney announced massive reductions in council allowances in his budget on Wednesday.
Cosla, the umbrella body that represents Scotland’s 32 local authorities, has branded Mr Swinney’s cut “catastrophic”.
The group’s president, Councillor David O’Neill, added: “Whatever way they spin it, this is an “austerity” budget of straight political choice – how else could you describe a low spend, low tax budget that will cost 15,000 council jobs equivalent to 50 Tata Steelworks to put that into some context.”