29 March 2002
That is the deadline for a response from the Scottish Executive to a Parliamentary report that advocates returning the business rate to local authority control, developing a Business Improvement District system (Bids) and putting the foundations of a local income tax into place.
The authors of the report, MSPs on the Local Government Committee, want a finance system where funds are raised half from local coffers and half from national ones. Currently the split is 20:80 in favour of national funding.
The committee wants an end to ringfenced funding (other than for police) and a more transparent system. It also 'expressed concern about the overall level of provision for council spending in Scotland'.
Trish Godman, the committee's convener, said: 'Even though power has been devolved from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament, it is still essential that Scotland maintains a strong local government.'
So has Scotland's devolution placed the country on the verge of a long-awaited local revolution? Unfortunately not.
The likelihood is that very few of the committee's proposals will come into effect. 'I think the Executive will say that they are not going to have it, I don't foresee a huge vote for it,' Trish Marwick, the Scottish National Party's shadow local government minister, told Public Finance.
Certainly, the Executive has a history of holding back reform in this area. The only reason Parliament took up a study into council finance was because repeated calls for the Executive to do so always failed.
And, just as the 14-strong committee was proudly publishing its findings, Scotland's third First Minister Jack McConnell was giving a classical Blairite speech that was short on specifics but long on clichés. McConnell wants to see public services delivered through real 'partnership', that puts a 'clear focus' on the needs of the users and 'searches out best value'.
In English, none of these things is thought to translate into giving councils the power to raise a local tax – or even restoring the business rate to town hall control. To do so, Scottish Labour would have to ignore business concerns.
McConnell also said he was weary of councils asking for little more than extra money from central government.
But even some members of the committee believe it could have gone further. Marwick says that although the report was worthy, all it has done is 'shuffle the deckchairs around the Titanic'.
So, should we expect any change? Yes, but only a little. A more transparent system showing just how councils get what and why is likely. Although, given that fewer people comprehend the intricacies of local government than understand why the BBC still commissions new episodes of The last of the summer wine, that will not be hard.
A revaluation of properties and a review of the number of council tax bands are also likely, though with council tax rising only by 4.5% in 2002/03, this might seem less urgent than in England.
Even Bids, responsible for the regeneration of many urban areas in the US through real partnership between the public and private sectors, seem harmless enough to bring in and would mirror change afoot in England.
So will there be any sacrificial lambs to appease those who want wholesale change? Step forward our old friend the Private Finance Initiative. Change is wanted on the capital finance side and the PFI is as popular in Scotland as St George.
Other MSPs are already examining the work of the PFI and it could just be that Scotland really pushes through with some alternatives. The Local Government Committee concluded that some PFI contracts are 'inflexible and more costly than conventionally financed schemes'. Therefore, it continued: 'There would be merit in developing alternatives to conventional PFI/PPP schemes.'
Now that would be a revolution.
Local taxation will be discussed at the CIPFA Scottish Conference in Glasgow on April 4 and 5
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