Hansard

Mr McCabe is a democratically elected leader of his own council and acts in that capacity without any instruction from me or anyone else. He has his own democratic mandate, and it is about time that the Scottish Government started recognising and respecting the democratic mandate of councils, because not doing so is how we got this problem in the first place.

As I said, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance was sent out to assure councils and Parliament that the freeze would be fully funded, but she completely failed to give any details, repeating over and over that it would be down to negotiations with the valued partners in local government who were snubbed by that very announcement.

The minister appeared at committee and could not give any explanation of what a fully funded council tax freeze meant. We then got the details of the result of those in-depth negotiations with councils, which seemed to be a case of the Government just plucking a figure of its own out of the air because COSLA rejected it completely. Then, after weeks of the Government insisting that the council tax freeze was fully funded, all of a sudden it was not fully funded, because another £63 million was found. However, the kick in the teeth to local councils was that that funding came mostly from UK Barnett consequentials, which should have been going to councils anyway. It would be funny if it were not absolutely tragic.

It is the councillors from every political party, including the SNP, in all 32 local authorities who are having to make the heartbreaking decisions—decisions that are of this Government’s making. It is this Government that has cut billions of pounds cumulatively from council budgets and from council services—services that the most vulnerable rely on—since 2013. Roads are crumbling, teacher numbers are being cut, libraries are closing and bins are overflowing. Now, it is being left to those councillors to make those tough decisions to balance the books. They are taking the tough decisions on whether to accept the freeze to protect households or whether to try to protect services.

We should all be concerned about the context of the discussions that councillors are having on whether to accept it. I have been told that, as a result of the damage to the relationship between national and local government and the lack of any trust whatsoever between those two spheres of government, those who are making decisions in councils, at political and officer level, are making recommendations on budgets and on freezing council tax on the basis that they cannot trust the Government to baseline the freeze funding. There are councils that are, right now, working on the basis that the Government will give with one hand and take away with the other and that, next year, they will have to impose huge increases in council tax just to stay afloat.

The fact that hard-working, non-political council officers in council chambers of all political make-ups have that level of distrust in the Government should shock and appal everyone in this chamber, and it shows just how damaged and toxic the relationship between local and national Government has become.

I hope that the minister will reflect on that, and I hope that we are not in the same position as we are now when we consider the equivalent order next year.