A damning report from the Accounts Commission warned a homelessness crisis in the city and equal pay costs are piling pressure on the already struggling City Council.
John Swinney has blamed the UK Government for a homelessness crisis that threatens to effectively bankrupt Scotland’s largest local authority.
The finances of Glasgow City Council are in a “critical” state and councillors must find a further £110m in savings to plug a financial blackhole, a damning report by the Accounts Commission has warned.
The watchdog said rising homelessness, which has been fuelled by a refugee crisis, and equal pay costs are piling pressure on the already embattled city council.
Spending on homelessness in Glasgow has increased from £38 million in 2025-26 to an expected £56 million in 2026-27, and will hit almost £75 million in 2027-28.
The SNP Government has already committed to covering a “meaningful” part of the council’s housing bill but pressure is mounting to find a sustainable solution.
The rise in homelessness applications has been linked to the asylum backlog in the city, which houses most of Scotland’s asylum seekers.
Swinney today pinned the blame for the city’s dire finances on the UK Government, which controls the asylum process.
Speaking to a news agency, he said: “What’s happened is that the Home Office and the way in which they’ve taken forward the decisions about leave to remain have essentially created a significant implication for public services without the financial support to address those issues.
“The city council is absolutely right to press the Home Office to make sure that it addresses the implications of the decisions the Home Office have made, which is a reasonable expectation for Glasgow City Council to have.”
Swinney added: “We obviously work very closely with Glasgow City Council and other local authorities around the country to maximise the financial support that we make available to individual local authorities.
“Glasgow, as the Accounts Commission report indicates, is dealing with some very significant financial pressures, not least of which from the implications of resolving the equal pay claims that the city council has been wrestling with.
“We will of course work very closely with the city council in making sure that it reaches a position of financial sustainability, and the Government, of course, is strongly supporting local authorities with financial assistance.”
SNP councillor Richard Bell, who is expected to become the next leader of Glasgow City Council, warned the city is “carrying the burden for the whole of Scotland” in housing asylum seekers.
“That can’t be right,” he said today. “It can’t fall on the taxpayers of Glasgow to support all of these people across the whole country.”
Bell said Finance Secretary Jenny Gilruth had promised to make a “meaningful contribution” towards Glasgow’s costs.
He said: “We’re now in very close discussions with the Government about what ‘meaningful’ means, so that we can actually tie that down to a pounds and pence contribution.”
He said the Scottish Government must either change its homelessness legislation or fund its consequences, adding: “At the moment, we’re kind of in the middle of that, and they’re doing neither.”
It comes as a Scottish Labour leadership candidate called for a review of Holyrood’s liberal homelessness laws to help Glasgow cope with the refugee crisis.
Joe Fagan said rethinking the abolition of “priority need” for help with housing should be done in a “rational” way.
Council chiefs believe the UK Government’s decision to clear a backlog of asylum seeker cases is behind the increased spending.
Asylum seekers who have been housed in Glasgow by the Home Office are declaring themselves homeless in the city after they are allowed to stay in the UK.
However, Holyrood’s decision to scrap the ‘priority need’ test for homelessness in 2012 is also under scrutiny.
Critics believe the decision has made Glasgow attractive to single male refugees from all over the UK.
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