Meeting of the Parliament (Virtual) 04 February 2021
This has been an important debate. Following this bill, it is vital that we see the change that COSLA’s political leadership has agreed that we need on a cross-party basis. Now is the time to review how powers, responsibilities and resources are shared across national and local spheres of government and with communities. It will amuse my local colleagues when I tell them that Stewart Stevenson thinks that there is only 2 per cent ring fencing in this year’s budget.
There can be no meaningful change without leadership and commitment to the three interlinked empowerments—community, functional and fiscal change. The development of one without the other will lead to changes that are superficial. How do you empower communities in service delivery if that is not how national services are delivered locally? In relation to the recent Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act 2021 we discussed how we need to give local organisations the financial flexibility to change how they deliver in line with local need.
It is important that the bill is followed not by piecemeal change but by real change across the public sector. It is vital to consider the points that Rhoda Grant made about the diversity of Scotland, and the Highlands and Islands in particular, in terms of geography and socioeconomic pressures. Incorporation of the charter would strengthen the ability to find local solutions to local problems.
There are key areas where we need to see a new respect for our councils, not the micromanagement that we saw last summer, when local authorities had to make urgent decisions on the pandemic without any confidence about how the Scottish Government would deliver on consequentials. Indeed, in last week’s budget, we saw our councils praised on the one hand, yet given an underfunded council tax offer on the other.
To give an example of how things need to change in day-to-day legislation, at yesterday’s meeting of the Local Government and Communities Committee, we debated the Town and Country Planning (Short-term Let Control Areas) (Scotland) Regulations 2021. However, although that gives councils the opportunity to propose a short-term let control order, the power to approve or refuse such an order stays with the minister.
We have now had a decade of cuts to local council budgets, and it is high time that our councils had more power. A key part of delivering on short-term lets would be giving our councils the power to introduce a tourism levy—something that I was working on during the last session of the Parliament—but to date there has been only a consultation on the principle of a tourist levy from the Government, and we will now have to wait until the next parliamentary session for action.
The charter says that local authorities shall be entitled to
“adequate financial resources of their own, of which they may dispose freely within the framework of their powers”,
that councils’ financial resources
“shall be commensurate with the responsibilities provided for by the constitution and the law”,
that they should be of a
“sufficiently diversified and buoyant nature to enable them to keep pace as far as practically possible with the real evolution of the cost of carrying out their tasks”
and that at least part of their financial resources must come from local taxes and charges
“of which, within the limits of statute, they have the power to determine the rate.”
It makes clear that although measures taken to correct the effect of unequal resources between councils are possible, they must not
“diminish the discretion local authorities may exercise within their own sphere of responsibility.”
All those principles are important.
I hope that the bill will come back and we will be able to pass it at stage 3 during this parliamentary session. I hope that it will provide a new parity, and that the SNP Government will change tack and retreat from the centralisation that has been a hallmark of its time in power. We need both a change in culture and to deliver respect daily.
I hope that members support this bill. It can deliver change that will empower our councils and the communities that they serve. I look forward to seeing that change being delivered.
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