Scottish councils will get no subsidy cash if they put up council tax – Robison

By The Press Association15th February 2024News ScotlandGovernment / Politics, Local Authorities, News Scotland

Scotland’s finance secretary has warned local authorities they will not receive money to cover a council tax freeze if they opt to increase the levy.

Shona Robison (pictured) said authorities will not get a share of the £147 million the Scottish Government has pledged to fund a council tax freeze equivalent to 5%, if they increase council tax.

Ms Robison told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “We have provided £147 million to councils to fund a council tax freeze equivalent to 5%, to help households when the cost-of-living crisis is still there, bills are high, and it is an area people can have certainty over that the bills are not going to rise.

“We’ve also provided £145 million to maintain teacher numbers and, of course, we know to close the poverty related attainment gap and to improve education, teachers are an important part of that.

“So, we believe these elements of funding are important.

“But, ultimately, it is for councils to decide but they can’t then have the money for those purposes if they decide to do otherwise.”

Her comments come as councils around the country are poised to set budgets.

Ms Robison insisted the budget settlement for councils was “fair” in the context of what she described as a “real terms cut” in the Scottish Government budget from the UK Government.

“I think the whole of the public sector is challenged and we have to be fair to the whole of the public sector, which means a fair settlement for local government,” she said.

“And, within that, we have prioritised some of the areas that are really important and we want to work with local government to move those forward.”

She added that political leaders in council umbrella body Cosla had said they wanted the cash for the council tax freeze, “plus a number of other asks, which isn’t a very reasonable negotiating position”.

“We had been making progress, I thought, to date, but political leaders have passed a motion that makes that very challenging,” she said.

“We will continue to discuss with Cosla where there are areas of further compromise, but it has to be reasonable, it has to be fair to the rest of the public sector, it has to be fair to council tax payers.”

Last week, Cosla agreed the council tax freeze should be on a “voluntary basis” and that the £147 million earmarked by the Scottish Government for this purpose should be distributed to all councils with flexibility to raise council tax by up to 5%.

Councillor Stephen McCabe, the Labour leader of Inverclyde Council, told the same programme the Verity House Agreement between the Scottish Government and councils could be at risk.

He said: “I think it is absolutely dead in the water.

“I’ve never known the relations between local government and the Scottish Government to be so low. I don’t know where we go from here, to be perfectly honest.”

First Minister Humza Yousaf announced a council tax freeze at the SNP party conference last October without consulting council leaders – a move Cosla described as having caused “real anger” among members at the time.