by Councillor Feargal Dalton

History was made in Glasgow City Chambers in February when Councillor Allan Gow was the first SNP city treasurer to present a budget to council.

After much debate the budget was approved after the city treasurer accepted amendments from the Green Party.

As a citizen of Glasgow I welcomed this budget, particularly as a pedestrian, parent and cyclist, the money for road safety and the measures to discourage car use.

As city convener for workforce, I welcomed the £2.5 million made available for the harmonisation of the terms and conditions of predominantly female homecare workers within Cordia, an arms length organisation or ALEO.

The SNP stood on a manifesto of harmonisation between male and female workers and I have already sat down with trade unions and officers to start working out the detail.

Specifically, we are addressing the disparity between Cordia and council staff when it comes to holiday and overtime pay. Of course, the best way to do that is for Cordia staff to be council staff. The SNP are working on bringing Cordia back into the council.

Money was also made available for land and environmental services. Previously, service needs have been dealt with by employing people on temporary contracts without any longer-term consideration. The SNP think more strategically. We are investing to improve.

We asked the cleansing department how many permanent members of staff they actually needed to deliver the required service. The answer was 150 and the money has been made available.

I have stressed to senior officers that the new job opportunities are to be awarded on an equal opportunities basis. We need to get away from “men’s jobs” and “women’s jobs”.

Council tax raising powers were used in order to meet the Scottish Government’s national pay award of 3 per cent for our lowest public sector workers. This breaks the UK government’s public sector pay cap and is another way in which Scotland is using its limited powers to combat Westminster austerity.