Glasgow has more than 100 fewer street cleaners than it did five years ago.

Council statistics show that the number of staff working in street cleansing has dropped by 20% since 2015/16.

A report Tackling Glasgow’s Waste published in 2015 stated there were 1275 front line staff working in cleansing in the city.

It was broken down into ‘refuse collectors’, who work on the bin lorries, ‘waste disposal’ who worked in the depots at Dawsholm, Queenslie, Polmadie and Shieldhall and ‘street cleansing’ who swept the streets and emptied the litter bins.

There were 573 refuse collectors,175 waste disposal and 527 street cleansing workers for 2015/16/

The current head count shows there are 1114 front line staff overall in the cleansing department.

The biggest reduction has been in the depot workers in waste disposal, where there has been a reduction of 45%, down to 96 workers.

There has been a small increase in the number of refuse collectors up 4% to 598.

And the workers keeping the city streets clean has dropped by 20%, reducing by 107 over five years from 527 to 420.

Five years ago, the council report said: “The cleanliness of Glasgow’s streets remains a priority for the council.

“New street furniture provided by the council, such as litter bins and ‘recycling on the go’ bins, will help to improve environmental performance.

“They will also provide residents and visitors with the option to recycle when they are away from their home.”

The Glasgow Times has been contacted by many people in the city concerned about litter on streets.

Main roads in communities outside the city centre often have bins overflowing and bags left at the side, which are ripped open by gulls, leaving litter strewn across the street.

The Scottish Government budget for 2015/16 identified funding for Glasgow City Council in 2015-16 is £1,259.481 million.

Since then, there has been cuts year on year and tens of millions of pounds taken from the council budget.

Chris Mitchell, GMB convenor for cleansing staff, said: “There has been horrendous cut to the service.

“They have obliterated the street cleansing budget.”

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: “Despite the obvious pressure on overall council finances,  the budget for cleansing services remains a priority and is being protected year on year.

“At around £100m each year, environmental protection is the council’s single biggest spend after education and social care with waste collection and disposal accounting for the vast majority of that budget.

“The number of refuse collectors has remained at a consistent level in recent years and the budget for street cleansing has been maintained in recent years with almost £18m allocated for this year.

“The spend on street cleansing in Glasgow is routinely twice the national average for local authorities and is significantly greater than other comparable council-areas per head of population."