Meeting of the Parliament 27 February 2025
I agree with the member that revaluation is the first step in that direction. I hope that that can be looked at.
I referred to the gaps in funding. The Scottish Government claims that the budget should help councils. In reality, the lack of flexibility means that council tax is the only lever left for councils to use to deal with that. It is disappointing to see many councils using that lever, but taxpayers can understand the concerns that councils have, given what they need to do. Councils have spent a decade in this situation.
On that issue, SNP ministers would do well to listen to the Scottish Parliament information centre—our internal research centre—which said:
“the Scottish Government could find itself being blamed just as much as the councils themselves”
for the tax hikes. That SPICe report talks about how local government funding has fallen as a percentage of Scottish Government spending since 2016. In other words, council funding has not kept pace with total Government spend. Although the Government claims to value local government and the important contributions that it makes to communities, and it claims to stand up for that, in reality, its actions do not speak to those claims.
An improved long-term relationship needs to develop and evolve between central and local government in Scotland. The Verity house agreement brought them together to take steps to build a relationship. Although there has been some progress, such as on a small reduction in ring-fenced funding, many councils are still concerned that the agreement will have few benefits for them in the long term.
The agreement was supposed to support “shared priorities”. We want there to be “shared priorities”, “mutual trust” and “Improved engagement”. In reality, none of that has really happened. A huge amount of information is still required and there is still no trust between national and local government in Scotland. That must be looked at as a priority.
More than 18 months on from that agreement, there is still a huge amount to be done to fix that relationship. It is clear that local government cannot continue being treated as such a low priority by this SNP Government. Councils are making difficult decisions to get their budgets over the line and many of them are running out of flexibility within those budgets to manage that process. If Scotland continues with the review, it is important that there is a deal for local government. I hope that the new relationship will acknowledge just how important our councils are to communities in Scotland. They want to be treated with the respect that they deserve. They have a huge amount of work to do in supporting our communities, constituencies and regions, but that can be done only if there is a relationship between the Scottish Government and councils.
15:10