Finance Secretary John Swinney: 'cooler heads' should accept the local government funding deal

Finance Secretary John Swinney remains hopeful that with “cooler heads” councils will come to accept the Scottish Government’s deal on local government funding.

He was responding to COSLA and the Scottish Local Government Partnership (SLGP)’s rejection of his finance settlement for local government on Friday, which COSLA president Councillor David O’Neill described as “totally unacceptable and an attack on our democratic mandate”.

John Swinney called the Scottish Government’s funding proposals “a strong but challenging financial settlement for local government, despite cuts to the central budget by the UK Government”.

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“It is a deal that will see an additional £250 million invested in social care, it will help councils deliver the Living Wage, giving 40,000 people a pay rise, it will freeze council tax for a ninth consecutive year, and it protects the pupil-teacher ratio, helping improve attainment,” he said.

“Overall, as a percentage of total revenue expenditure, the reduction in local authority budgets is around just two per cent.

“So while I recognise this will not be easy for councils to accommodate, some of the language used to describe the deal has been unnecessary.

“I hope and expect cooler heads will come to realise this is a deal councils can and should accept.”

GMB Scotland and the STUC will lobby the Scottish Parliament about local government funding this afternoon while MSPs are debating the draft budget, including the local government finance settlement.

The STUC is calling on the Scottish Government to end the council tax freeze and reform the small business bonus scheme, which it estimates is costing nearly £200m per year, while urging councils to honour agreements on teacher numbers and to pay the living wage to care workers.

STUC General Secretary Grahame Smith said: “The Scottish Government has been placed in a very difficult position as a result of the UK Government’s continuing austerity agenda. 

“This year’s settlement was even worse than most were predicting. 

“However, this cannot obscure the fact that the settlement for local government is particularly bad and councils are effectively being denied to opportunity to raise their own revenue to protect services and jobs.”