01 June 2007
Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney has told council leaders he wants to freeze council tax bills from 2008 prior to introducing a local income tax.
The SNP minister, whose party is the minority government at Holyrood, set out his proposals when he had talks with council leaders at Stirling Castle on May 28.
Speaking after the meeting, Swinney said: 'We made clear in the election campaign our belief that the council tax had increased by far too much over the past ten years and we have to take steps to protect council tax payers from increases in the future.'
Labour and the Conservatives are opposed to a local income tax but the SNP, which lacks an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament, is hoping to force the measures through with Liberal Democrat support.
Swinney said he wanted to develop a 'constructive' relationship with local authorities, so it was not necessary to legislate for the freeze. In return, councils would be freed from Executive control in many areas.
'We want to set the strategic direction for Scotland… but we want to free local authorities from many of the constraints they operate within, to operate with more discretion, developing policy at a local level.'
News of the council tax freeze came just days after a report by an independent budget review group found that the Scottish Executive could save more than £1bn a year by reviewing existing spending commitments and introducing further efficiencies.
The report by Bill Howat, former chief executive of the Western Isles Council, was commissioned by the former Labour-Liberal Democrat Executive, which refused to publish it before the recent elections. It is highly critical of the way the Executive controls spending.
'Programme management is too much about spending the available budget rather than defining clearly what needs to be provided,' the report said. 'The Scottish Executive should focus on strategy and policy and avoid detailed management in areas more suited to its delivery agents.'
It also called for serious consideration of a reorganisation of public sector bodies. 'Scotland's public services are delivered through a complex and costly web of public bodies and agencies,' the report said. 'This crowded landscape should be reviewed as soon as possible to determine whether fewer organisational entities could be more effective at delivering outcomes and could do so at a reduced cost.'
According to Howat, £818m could be freed by moving money from poorly performing programmes or those not meeting ministers' objectives. There is also potential for a further £422m savings, bringing the total to more than £1.2bn.
The review concluded, too, that budget managers did not all have the necessary financial management skills and identified differing levels of knowledge and expertise.
In a statement to MSPs, Swinney promised to adopt an approach of 'simpler, smaller' government and reassess the relationship between the Executive, agencies and public bodies.
In separate developments, First Minister Alex Salmond has called for relations between Holyrood and Westminster to be conducted on a more formal basis. He said the emergence of different administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, ruled by different parties, brought the need for a formal channel of communication.
Salmond, who plans to set up an inquiry into the way free personal care for the elderly is working, has already called on Westminster to restore to Scotland £23m in attendance allowances, a UK personal care benefit which was withdrawn when Holyrood backed the free care policy.
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon this week announced plans to allow waiting time targets for cancer patients to be fully met by the end of this year.
PFjun2007
