Scotland's council tax freeze will have cost over 100,000 public-sector jobs by the decade’s end, government union Unison warned yesterday.

It lamented the “impossible” demands placed on the Scottish budget by Westminster’s austerity agenda, with year-on-year inflation eroding the real-terms value of Holyrood’s war chest by around £3 billion since 2010.

The union’s The Cuts Don’t Work report said that around 50,000 public-sector jobs had vanished in Scotland since 2010, the report warned, with a further 60,000 job losses anticipated over the next five years as inflation swallowed up another £3.3bn.

The union said some SNP policies like introducing the living wage had eased the strain on public services.

But others, such as the longstanding council tax freeze, had “in some cases made the impact worse.”

The flagship policy has barred local authorities from increasing their tax rates since 2007 — a move that proved popular with cash-strapped voters, but through which councils lose around £2.5bn.

Unison Scottish convener Lilian Macer said that had led to “local libraries closing, or the rushed — and very impersonal — 15-minute care visits your grandmother gets.”

Scottish Local Government Minister Derek Mackay has insisted the freeze is “fully funded” with annual top-ups to local authority grants of £70 million, a year-on-year increase of around 2.75 per cent.

But inflation has exceeded 2.75 per cent in four of the seven years since the policy began and union officials say this represents continued real-terms cuts.