Meeting of the Parliament 06 February 2014
Yes, Mr Rennie, it is 85 per cent, because we have gone through the basis of the calculation that is undertaken in all of these approaches.
Mr Baker has a brass neck to come here and complain about local authority funding in Aberdeen, given that the Labour Administration—in fact it was, I say to Mr Rennie, a Labour-Liberal Democrat Administration—did not lift a finger in eight years to sort out Aberdeen City Council’s financial issues. He has a second layer of brass neck because the Labour Party was shoving out leaflets in the Glasgow North East by-election that complained about all the money that was being spent in Aberdeen at Glasgow’s expense. He should be careful what he wishes for, when the Labour Party issues leaflets in Glasgow complaining about funding for Aberdeen. The fact is that this Administration has put in place financial support for Aberdeen City Council that it has never had before.
Sarah Boyack and Richard Baker voted for the budget yesterday. I therefore find many of their remarks today a bit on the odd side. They appear not to realise the financial constraints within which we operate. Sarah Boyack said that there has been a £637 million reduction in local government funding. That might have something to do with the fact that police and fire expenditure is no longer part of the local government financial settlement and is, in fact, paid directly by the Government. That arrangement is a result of legislative change that—if my memory serves me right—the Labour Party voted for in Parliament.
My final point is on the business rates incentivisation scheme. I read to Parliament the letter that was sent to me by Councillor Kevin Keenan, of COSLA, in June 2013. The issue with the business rates targets is that the pattern of appeals decisions in relation to the business rates revaluation meant that local government would have had a windfall gain in one year and the Government would have had a loss the next year. We do not have to be mathematicians to work out that, although local government might have been prepared to take the windfall gain in one year, it would not have been prepared to contribute to that loss the next year because of the exceptional change in the statistics. Anybody occupying the seat that I occupy would have arrived at exactly the decisions that I have arrived at.
We will present material to Parliament when we have agreement with COSLA. We continue to seek that agreement and will do so in good faith.