Wednesday April 29th 2026
Glasgow City Chambers
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Catherine Hunter
Questions over the rate of Glasgow’s recruitment programme for cleansing services across the city have been raised by a local councillor.
During the council’s budget for 2025/26 the neighbourhoods, regeneration and sustainability (NRS) team received £6.5m in additional revenue investment to expand core operational services across the city.
This budget supported the enhancement of the deep clean service, nightshift streetscene operations, helped to create 23 neighbourhood clean teams, and an expansion of parks operatives.
Delivery of the 2025/26 investment programme required one of the largest coordinated recruitment exercises undertaken by Neighbourhoods, Regeneration and Sustainability (NRS) in recent years.
With significant workforce expansion required across Streetscene, Deep Clean Teams, Neighbourhood Clean Teams, Nightshift services and Parks Operations, a multi-service recruitment campaign was developed to ensure that all posts could be filled at pace and with high-quality candidates.
Recruitment activity started in early 2025 with some teams becoming operational at slightly different points once all employment checks and inductions were fully completed.
This approach ensured that staff were safely and appropriately prepared for their roles prior to deployment, particularly within frontline operational environments.
Councillor Stephen Curran said: “I have a question about recruitment and staff wellbeing.
“I think the recruitment initially for this was probably slower than I would have hoped for but I don’t know if that is a fair comment and how is recruitment going across the range of work that is in the paper in terms of the aspirations to deliver on the new working models.”
A council officer said: “I would like to highlight that there was also recruitment taking place in other areas of the business as well so it was a significant task.
“I am pleased to see that the recent investment that has been put through for this year’s budget approval so the process has considerably speeded up which I am pleased to report on.
“It was February this year when we had everyone in post and the teams were working closely together.
“Our squads have been provided with devices which allow them to record when they get on site.”
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