West Dunbartonshire Council has identified £9 million worth of efficiency savings, but needs to save another £8 million over the next three years and has drawn up a list of potential service cuts to balance the books.

Council chiefs staged a meeting in Clydebank Town Hall last Tuesday night to discuss their proposals and allow the public to share their views.

Almost 200 residents packed into the town hall, however the atmosphere quickly turned sour and rowdy as the busy agenda was hurried through — leaving no time to develop ideas or discussion over the spending cut proposals.

Votes were recorded on electronic devices for each option but many Bankies still left feeling their opinions were not taken on board.

Kilpatrick Councillor Jim Finn described the meeting as “a bit of a shambles”. He added: “There were too many people asking questions that were not getting answers. The reaction did show that people aren’t happy about the potential cuts — only four of the 28 options actually went through.” Voices were raised in response to many of the proposals as council officer Peter Barry, who chaired the event, attempted to move through them quickly.

Some of the residents who attended called for council bosses to take a stance against spending cuts. However, they point-blank refused and insisted it would be an illegal move to refuse to produce a balanced budget.

Council officers explained that the budget was cut from the SNP Scottish Government, whose budget had been slashed by the Conservative-led UK Government.

Event chairman Peter Barry thought the meeting proved very useful and described the process as “democracy in action”.

He said: “These are big and deep issues and people are passionate about. I think there’s a long journey for this council to work with communities to deliver change and this is part of the process.” Among the council’s money saving options is a £4 million hit on educational services. This includes controversial suggestions such as cutting back on teaching hours and withdrawing funding for after school club Play After Learning Scheme (PALS), a group which caters for disabled children.

Whitecrook man Alan Rutherford, a photographer and chairman of Whitecrook Primary School, attended the meeting.

The 37-year-old said: “The cuts that have been proposed are absolutely ridiculous. The most vulnerable people are being targeted when they should be looking elsewhere to plug the budget shortfall.

“I think the Scottish Government have to answer why they’re letting this happen. And the council should be listening to their people, not just ticking the boxes that they’re told to.” Charlie Sherry, of Clydebank Yes Alliance, was one of many vocal throughout the meeting.

He said: “The consultation was just railroading, a shambles. There was no consultation process, people came in and they were expected to vote on issues that involved peoples’ jobs and lives without being informed at all. It was not open to debate and was rushed through. The council was merely looking to rubber-stamp its proposals.” Muriel Robertson, from the West Dunbartonshire Access Panel, said: “There needed to be more detail on the options. The other year they had three consultations but we had to come to Clydebank because there was only one this year and so we had to travel down here.” Charlie McDonald, West Dunbartonshire convener for Unite the union, urged the local authority to pass on savings from the fall in fuel costs to help protect frontline services.

He said: “The council has massive fuel costs and I imagine there will be considerable savings when about 30 per cent of fuel costs have dropped. Given the council operates a huge fleet of vehicles, there must be savings which can be used to fund frontline services.” A council spokeswoman said: “The public meeting on the proposed budget savings was a good opportunity for residents to express their views and ask questions of officers. Given the large number of people present it was felt the best way to capture all their views was by using electronic voting. This mirrored the format used successfully at the budget meeting in January 2014.

“Feedback and suggestion sheets were distributed at the event to allow people to make additional comments and put forward alternative options. Questions were also invited from each table in the hall and all were answered.The feedback provided at the event will help inform decision making by the elected members.”