Thursday January 22nd 2026
Glasgow City Chambers
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Drew Sandelands
Health and social care services in Glasgow are facing an estimated budget gap of around £53m next year, bosses have revealed.
The shortfall has increased from an earlier projection of £34m following the Scottish Government budget announcement last week. The cost of dealing with rising homelessness in the city is a key factor behind the increase, officials said.
Pat Togher, chief officer of Glasgow’s health and social care partnership (HSCP), which is funded by the council and the NHS, said staff are working on a savings plan for 2026/27 ahead of a budget meeting in March.
Speaking to the city’s integration joint board (IJB) — which oversees health and social care services — on Wednesday, Duncan Black, chief finance officer for the HSCP, explained the £34m gap had been “predicated on a number of things, one of which was an uplift from the council funding side of about £19m”.
“That’s not been forthcoming in this settlement,” he added. “Whilst local government has had a small uplift in its overall position of about £230m, in Glasgow’s case, because of the scale of the homelessness pressures… that has resulted in a significant pressure on the council gap, which means they are unable to pass through any support or uplift, for example in relation to any element of the local government pay award.”
He said Glasgow City Council faces a bill of around £56m due to ongoing homelessness pressure, relating to “continuing trends around those presenting in the city who have been given leave to remain”.
The council, rather than the IJB, is expected to “take the pressure” around homelessness, Mr Black, who is engaging with the council’s finance director, said.
Cllr Chris Cunningham, SNP, the council’s health convener, said: “In this instance, we probably should recognise that there is a bit of a dilemma there. We may not be getting the £19m that would be due to us, but the council is getting £56m in terms of potential homelessness pressure.
“If the £56m, or the debt, came to us, then it would blow our budget apart and cause us serious headaches which would bounce back on the council. The £56m sitting with the council is a better option from our point of view.”
To deal with the forecast funding gap, Mr Black said all services have been asked “to identify savings in the region of 1.5% of their net expenditure”. “That would generate around £21m of savings, so we are currently working through those,” he added.
A service prioritisation programme is under way, which had a savings target of £5m for the coming financial year. However, that could now be stretched to around £10m, board members were told.
An overspend of around £3.5m is forecast for the current year, down from a previous estimate of £6.9m.
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