WE are almost at the time where the budgets for next year will be decided, first Westminster, then Holyrood and on to local government. 

Tory-run councils south of the border, having privatised most services and now nearing bankruptcy, are declaring that they will only be able to fund the bare essentials in local services. 

Here in Scotland we have been faced with the same situation of councils administering ever decreasing budgets and cutting services and jobs year on year. 

The People’s Assembly Scotland for the last four years has put forward an alternative approach. 

We have called for councils to work together through the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish government, to produce budgets for their communities — “people’s budgets,” for councils to use the reserves they hold. 

A few councils did what they could and used their budgets and reserves to slow the decline, but the majority administered cuts and continued to implement so-called “efficiency savings,” and we have witnessed a steady decline in public services across Scotland. 

As in England, councils here are at breaking point after eight years of budget cuts and the resulting massive job losses.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. With Theresa May reeling from a very successful Labour Party conference and the disaster of her Brexit vision, her first declaration to the Tory faithful is that austerity is over. 

But we don’t need to pack up our flags and banners, stop our planned meetings and protests and say that austerity has ended.

We are living in the real world here in Scotland and the People’s Assembly produced its council budget manifesto two months ago. 

No matter the announcements of an end to austerity, where we can expect the Tories to throw crumbs to their own failing councils — and the resulting crumbs that might just help the SNP in Scotland to redistribute even less of the crumbs to their own local authorities.

Here in Scotland we are no longer merely calling for an end to cuts. Services are at breaking point and cannot be sustained if all we do is, at best, stand still. 

We need investment in our services, we need to be rebuilding our services. Local government needs to be strengthened, it needs investment to provide proper functioning services for all our communities. 

We want more council houses, municipal bus companies, implementation of Unite’s Construction Charter and Unison’s Ethical Care Charter, no more privatisation and outsourcing, a real and progressive form of local taxation that was promised by the SNP in another manifesto. We want anti-austerity councillors to do what they promised and fight Tory austerity.

The leaderships of many councils and councillors in Scotland were elected on anti-austerity manifestos. 

They were not elected to be the administrators and managers of endless cuts and austerity. The job of councillors who really oppose austerity, be it from Westminster or Holyrood, is to demonstrate that political leadership. 

We believe that a real anti-austerity approach to the 2019/20 budget should be the main priority and focus for all councils in Scotland.

To commit to being against austerity in a manifesto is an easy thing to do. Words without the actions to back them up is nothing but posturing and political opportunism of the worst kind and that is all we have seen from them over the years.

We need investment in our services, not more cuts or pseudo “efficiency savings” that only perpetuate Tory austerity. 

Tam Kirby is chair of Fife People’s Assembly and the Scottish People’s Assembly steering group.