Tax rises ‘inevitable’ unless council funding goes up

The Scottish Government has been accused of cutting £371 million in real terms from council budgets.

(Jane Barlow/PA) (PA Archive)

The Scottish Government has been accused of “pernicious” cuts to local authority funding that will lead to services being cut or a sharp rise in council tax.

Debating the proposed funding allocation at Holyrood opposition parties said councils are warning that Scots face “inevitable” council tax increases unless the Government gives councils more money.

But Government ministers insisted the £588.2 million was higher because of additional funding to provide free school meals and teacher recruitment.

The Scottish Conservatives’ local government spokesman, Miles Briggs, said: “This SNP and Green budget has yet again put council leaders the length and breadth of Scotland in a position to have to make huge cuts to services or dramatically increase council tax at the very time ministers have received record levels of funding from the UK Government.”

Scottish Conservative spokesman for local government, Miles Briggs (Lesley Martin/PA) (PA Archive)

Opening the debate, Mr Briggs said there had been “serious backlash” from councillors of all parties across the country at the proposed level of funding for local government with a real-terms cut of £371 million, according to the representative organisation Cosla.

Finance Secretary Kate Forbes intervened to ask where the Tories wanted the money to come from, to which Mr Briggs said the Scottish Government was receiving an additional £3.9 billion of Barnett formula consequentials that could be given to councils.

Mr Briggs called for a “new fair funding formula” with a set percentage of the Scottish Government budget allocated to councils each year, and said: “While the Barnett formula ensures that the Scottish Government’s budget is linked to UK Government spending, there’s no such protection for local government and services which they provide.

“This would prevent SNP ministers from consistently asking our councils to do more with less and the situation that we see today, where SNP and Green ministers on the one hand ring-fence council budgets for their Scottish Government priorities, and on the other hand cut council funding.”

Responding for the Government, public finance minister Tom Arthur said the Scottish budget was lower this year because of reduced UK Government spending on coronavirus measures.

He cited Scottish Fiscal Commission research that suggested the overall Scottish budget for 2022-23 was 2.6% lower than the previous year, or a 5.2% reduction taking inflation into account.

Mr Arthur said additional Barnett consequentials would go towards funding the “game-changing Scottish Child Payment”, and added: “I recognise the challenges we face in our budget are ultimately a reflection of the challenges that we face as a consequence from the UK Government’s settlement to the Scottish Parliament.”

Scottish Labour’s Neil Bibby warned that it was “simply unsustainable for the SNP to continue cutting council budgets to the bone”, and hit out at the “pernicious ring-fencing” and cuts.

He said: “Today, the president of Cosla said that tax rises are inevitable, that cuts are inevitable unless the Government delivers an improved financial settlement.

“These are not choices, these are SNP cuts forced on local government as part of a sustained campaign that’s been going on for a decade now and has cost services £937 million since 2013.”

This year's funding settlement is harsher than most with hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts. That's why councillors of all political persuasions - including SNP councillors - are so angry

Willie Rennie MSP

Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Willie Rennie added: “This year’s budget is no different from all the rest. We get the usual conjurer’s trick from ministers who send ring-fenced parcels of money to local councils for new tasks and claim that money is for old tasks.

“The money goes up, but the cost of the new responsibilities go even higher, which leaves councils to cut other services.

“This year’s funding settlement is harsher than most with hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts. That’s why councillors of all political persuasions – including SNP councillors – are so angry this year.”