Glasgow City Council: The facts

Glasgow is Scotland's largest city, with a population of around 585,000. Situated on the west coast of Scotland's central belt, its image has been stereotyped over the years as a grimy industrial city populated by hard drinking tough guys. However, the modern Glasgow has much more to offer than just its rich and fascinating past. It has a challenging present, the meeting of which is Glasgow City Council's primary role.

Introduction

Glasgow City Council offers a whole range of publicly funded services to its residents, including central and key services such as education, street cleaning and social care, to libraries, parks and arts development. The council's political element is made up of 79 elected Members, representing 21 multi-member wards of three or four members. The council's decision making structure is based on an Executive Committee, four Policy Development Committees and three Scrutiny Committees. The council also has retained regulatory type committees as well as a range of other small committees.

Online services

Council Tax payment can be conducted through the council's website, with online tax payment available. Residents can also use the council's website to pay other council bills, but will need to register online with the service first. The local council's eClaim system also simplifies the system residents can use to claim council tax and housing benefit. Other services online are a locator of council facilities and an A-Z full services list. Residents can also sign up for RSS feeds on news, traffic and job vacancies.

Jobs

Glasgow is still a city which struggles with unemployment as it finds new roles for itself after the sudden and traumatic transition from heavy industry which occurred in the 1980s. The Council acknowledges that in Glasgow jobs can be hard to find for some. The organisation asserts on its official website that one of its key challenges is to: "improve the number of good quality jobs and help residents gain access to those jobs that are available." The Glasgow Living Wage protects the pay of the council's workers at a minimum rate of £7 an hour.
This was partially implemented to tackle the culture of "worklessness and poverty", to quote the council itself, and to help address issues of wider dissatisfaction amongst workers. The city also offers Glasgow Vocation Education to residents of school age in order to allow them to access more vocational opportunities during school time in order to facilitate their chances of later employment.