The SNP's council tax freeze was intended as a temporary measure, but it is now into its seventh year.
The original aim was to provide an extra saving for struggling tax payers in the age of austerity, but the suspicion from the beginning was that it would benefit the better off more (after all, the very poorest already pay no council tax). Scotland's councils also said it would lead to them having to cut services, but have been kept in line by the Scottish Government with the threat of financial sanctions.
Now West Dunbartonshire Council has formally broken ranks and made a bid to increase its council tax without facing sanctions. There may well be party political reasons behind such a move - West Dunbartonshire is Labour-run and has no reason to avoid making trouble for the SNP Government - but it should help to further raise the issue of how Scotland's councils are currently funded, and how they should be funded in the future.
The problems with the current structure are obvious. Since 2007, councils have been unable to raise their council tax and, while the Scottish Government claims the freeze has been properly funded, many councils and Scottish Labour has argued that the freeze has led to cuts in services. Some councils have also responded by charging, or charging more, for their services - charges which disproportionately affect those most in need: people who rely on free transport, subsidised meals or free or low-cost community services.
Other councils have been forced to cut into their services and the extent of those cuts has started to emerge in recent months. Glasgow, for instance, needs to save £100 over three years and is threatening cuts to mental health services; Highland must save £64m and is looking to cut 1,000 jobs. There are many other stories in a similar vein.
What the council tax freeze has done over the last seven years is effectively remove the power of local authorities to attempt to balance their books by raising more money from local tax payers. In extending the freeze earlier this month, the Finance Secretary John Swinney insisted it was fairly funded (and extra money has been provided to fund extra child care places and to mitigate the effects of the bedroom tax) but the current structure of local government financing is no longer sustainable.
The immediate option is for the Scottish Government to listen to the likes of West Dunbartonshire Council and consider carefully its appeal to be able to raise its council tax. Of course, West Dunbartonshire could just go ahead and raise its council tax anyway, but financial penalties would then come crashing down on it, which would only make the situation worse for one of Scotland's most deprived local authorities. The Scottish Government must now seriously consider the effectiveness and fairness of a freeze in tax which benefits the better off more than the poor.
The Scottish Government should also expedite its plans for an alternative to council tax. Nicola Sturgeon has announced a commission to look at alternatives, which means she can at least say she is working on the problem. But it is not good enough. In their 2011 manifesto, the SNP promised to bring forward plans for a fairer system of local government finance within the lifetime of the present parliament but it has not happened and voters deserve to know the SNP's plans. Local government finance is in crisis and only a thawing of the council tax freeze, popular though it may be with many voters, and reform of how councils are funded can end it.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article