10 December 2010
Councils in Scotland will receive a funding package of £11.5bn next year, Finance Secretary John Swinney has announced.
Giving details of the 2011/12 local government finance settlement yesterday, he said average cash cuts would be 2.6% for councils that adopt measures agreed between the Scottish Government and local government leaders. Councils that do not adopt them will face cuts averaging 6.4%.
The measures include: maintaining a council tax freeze for the fourth successive year; guaranteeing commitments on education and free personal care for elderly people; and maintaining police numbers, which were increased after the Scottish National Party came to power in 2007.
Swinney said that, following talks with leaders of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Scottish Government had given local communities a very good deal in challenging circumstances.
He added: ‘Councils choosing to accept the package will see an average funding reduction superior to that for local government in England and receive greater protection than other parts of the Scottish budget.’
While the Cosla leadership has already agreed to the funding offer made by the Scottish Government, it is up to individual councils to decide whether they want to sign up to it.
The 32 councils will receive a total of £10.856bn for revenue funding in 2011/12, compared with £11.140bn in 2010/11. Capital funding stands at £691.800m, compared with £843.199m. Revenue funding includes £70m for maintaining the council tax freeze and £356m for the other measures.
Councils have been told that if they decide not to accept the agreement on policy measures, the grant held back will be withdrawn from the overall local government settlement and redeployed by ministers in the Scottish budget.
Labour local government spokesman Michael McMahon accused Swinney of ‘coercion’.
He said: ‘As the finance secretary has decided to cut budgets by 6.4% if councils don’t comply with his coercion, he has merely removed the pistol that he has pressed against the heads of councils for the past three years in order to replace it with a blunderbuss.’
Gordon Matheson, leader of Glasgow City Council – Scotland’s biggest local authority – said the above-average reduction of 3.6% the council faced was a ‘dagger through the heart of the city’.
