Meeting of the Parliament 27 February 2025
I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives in the debate on this year’s local government finance order. The motion before us today is necessary in order to allocate funding to each of Scotland’s 32 councils. The Scottish Conservatives will not oppose the motion.
However, it is important that this parliamentary time is used to highlight the current state of local government finances and the fact that councils are experiencing pressures from several different directions. A recent report from the Accounts Commission made for concerning reading. More than a third of councils made unplanned use of their reserves in 2023-24 to manage budget pressures, and more than half of councils do not have in place a long-term financial plan.
Councils are also facing pressure from the increase in employer national insurance contributions as a result of the UK Government’s tax grab. We welcome the additional £144 million of funding to address that, which was announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government earlier this month. However, COSLA has warned that that still leaves a gap of £96 million, which councils will have to find from their own budgets. Discussions with the UK Government on that issue continue, and the Scottish Government should stand ready to pass on any additional funding that the UK Government at Westminster makes available.
More generally, it is clear from engagement with local government that many councils have difficult decisions to make. In many cases, those will involve reducing or cutting important local services. I trust that, if the minister has engaged with councils throughout the budget process, he will be fully aware of all that.
As the weeks roll by, councils will finalise and set their budgets for the coming year. Some of them have agreed council tax increases that are higher than 10 per cent. In my region, there will be an increase of 9 per cent in Stirling and of 9.5 per cent in Perth and Kinross; the increase is as much as 13 per cent in Clackmannanshire.