ARGYLL and Bute Council could be hit further in the pocket by disputed staff pay awards, it has admitted.

And the Scottish Government’s draft budget, unveiled last week, is unlikely to provide a huge amount of relief for the authority.

Kirsty Flanagan, the council’s head of strategic finance, highlighted the issues as part of a report at last week’s meeting of the policy and resources committee.

An actual total for how much the authority can expect from Holyrood won’t be known until the New Year, despite finance secretary Derek Mackay having announced the preliminary figures last Wednesday.

Teaching staff in Scotland overwhelmingly rejected a proposed three per cent pay increase last month, with possible strike action being talked about.

Ms Flanagan said: “It is not good timing after the Scottish Government budget was produced.

“It is said that there is an increase in local government funding, but COSLA have produced a briefing saying that it is in reality a cut of two per cent.

“Part of the increase is in early learning and childcare, and there are commitments which we know we have to build into the budget.

“So building these in, our decrease is more like two and a half per cent. We have another £2m added to the budget gap.

“Another pressure not included is teachers’ pensions. Following an evaluation of the pension scheme, it has resulted in an increase of 30 per cent, which for us, equates to about £1.8m.

“We also have costs that will increase from April 1, 2019.

“We have a commitment that we will receive some of the Scottish Government’s budget but right now we don’t know how much.”

Councillor Gary Mulvaney recognised that the council is at “an impasse”on pay awards and is awaiting further feedback from trade unions.

He said: “On the employers’ side, is there an opportunity to increase the offer to employees in a multi-year settlement?

“The key to that, though, is that we could not make the offer unless there was a guarantee that the Government would fund something like that.”

Council chief executive Cleland Sneddon said of the pay dispute: “The trade unions have voted to reject the pay offer, so the proposal now is to seek out opinion with a view to strike action.”