Budget day is a big event in the life of a council, probably the biggest in the year.

The vote on that day sets out the income and spending commitments for the year and can decide the fate of the ruling political group.

With a minority SNP administration, this year’s budget in Glasgow appeared to live up to its own headlines. It was high stakes and had its own high drama. Would the SNP budget pass or would the city government fall?

So, what mattered this year?

There was a budget shortfall of around £40 million, made a bit smaller because of the deal between the SNP government and the Greens in Holyrood. Most of that shortfall was made up of pay inflation and equal pay. The deal to sort the equal pay bill of £548m will need around £25m per year and, as will be obvious, this was a big part of the £40m shortfall.

In the end, the Tories didn’t present an alternative budget and didn’t vote – they shouted from the sidelines and said everyone else was useless.

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All three other parties – SNP, Labour and Greens – presented alternative budgets that were remarkably similar. All proposed savings of around £22m which, in the end, were what was required.

While all three draft budgets shared many similarities, one issue that was important for me as education convener was the commitment the city government made to free school meals for all primary children by the end of the council term.

Last year we extended free school meals to P4s and we looked to extend this further for the coming year. However, any further extension was going to be challenging in terms of space, staffing and management so our commitment was to the full extension, for all primary pupils, by 2022.

This will give us the time to make the changes that will be needed for the commitment to be made real.

It's all down to practicalities. Is there enough space? Is the lunch hour long enough? Can the kitchens cope with the increase? Are more staff needed?

As well as that we have made the commitment to look at the quality of what is on offer. Our school meals should be attractive as well as nutritious and the lunch hour should be part of the learning journey.

So, the challenge is big but the commitment to our young people is there. Watch this space.