Finance Secretary Derek Mackay has hinted that the Scottish Government could consider further reform of the council tax system.

Mr Mackay told MSPs at Holyrood he was prepared to engage with opposition parties on longer-term change as part of a "journey" on local taxation.

He was speaking in a debate on government proposals to bring in higher charges for some households in order to raise an extra £100 million a year for schools.

Under the reforms, set out by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in March, the average band E household will pay about £2 more per week, with those in the highest band paying an extra £10 a week - an average of £517 a year.

Read more: MSP committee rebukes Finance Secretary on budget scrutiny period

The changes follow a report by the Commission on Local Tax Reform which last year called for an end to the council tax and urged politicians to implement a fairer, more progressive and transparent tax to fund local services.

Legislation to bring about the reforms has already been set out in parliament.

Mr Mackay said: "I believe that these regulations will unlock finance for education as expressed in the SNP manifesto pledge, there will be protection in terms of the council tax reduction scheme changes as well.

"These initial reforms can be delivered at low administrative cost and achieve their purpose.

"Longer-term change, I think, will need more discussion, consensus and engagement, and I am certainly committed to that through the motion and through the engagement with political parties as we go forward.

"We have embarked on a journey in local taxation. We want to make it more progressive, deliver the steps that we got support for at the elections, then engage further on what can be delivered next in view of the report."

Conservative Murdo Fraser said the SNP appeared to have "abandoned" a 2007 manifesto pledge to replace council tax with a local income tax.

Mr Fraser said the Tories supported an end to the council tax freeze, additional protections for low-income households and higher charges for those in properties in bands G and H, but opposed increases for homes in bands E and F.

Read more: MSP committee rebukes Finance Secretary on budget scrutiny period

He added: "Just as seriously, we oppose the approach that ministers are taking in relation to how the increase in council tax will be dealt with.

"Ministers want to create a school attainment fund with money going direct to schools, that's an ambition that we agree with.

"But they want to fund this by clawing back from councils that additional money - £100 million that will be raised by these council tax revenues and take this centrally to pay directly to schools.

"There is absolutely no precedent for what is currently being proposed which undermines both local democracy and local accountability."

Responding to concerns about how education funds would be distributed, Mr Mackay said: "I can categorically assure every local authority area that every penny raised in council tax will stay in that local authority area.

"How we are proposing to allocate revenues towards education as we've proposed in the manifesto is through the revenue support grant.

"It is similar to business rates in terms of how that mechanism works and I don't hear the complaint that that mechanism hasn't worked to the satisfaction of local government.

"So, the principle is there but I'm very clear that which is raised at a local level through council tax will stay with those local authorities."

The Scottish Government also came under fire from Labour's Jackie Baillie and Green MSP Andy Wightman, who both served on the commission.

Ms Baillie said: "The SNP promised to replace the council tax but instead they have merely tinkered with."

The party's failure to fulfil its council tax pledge from 2007 "is perhaps the biggest broken promise of all", Ms Baillie said.

Scottish Government proposals for reform will increase charges for those in more expensive homes but these were branded as "timid" and "lacking in ambition".

With SNP politicians having previously described the council tax as unfair and regressive, Ms Baillie said: "Here are the SNP simply tinkering with the bands and keeping in their words a hated and unfair council tax. Exactly what the SNP said they were against.

"They say that actions speak louder than words. The SNP's actions in this case are a mere whimper."

Read more: MSP committee rebukes Finance Secretary on budget scrutiny period

She added: "A decade on, the SNP have not scrapped the council tax. Their proposals for reform are disappointing, they are lacking in ambition.

"The council tax is regressive, so the very poorest shoulder proportionately the larger burden, and the SNP have merely tinkered around the edges of this. But they had an opportunity to do it differently.

"The SNP can't bring themselves to implement the unanimous view of the commission by scrapping the council tax."

Mr Wightman said it had taken the commission "two nanoseconds" to decide the current system should be abolished.

He also criticised Scottish Government plans to use the £100 million extra cash that will be raised from its reforms to improve education.

"This is the first time in the history of local taxation since the introduction of the Pool Law in 1579 that local taxation has been appropriated for national spending priorities," he said.

The Green claimed that in Holyrood there could be a "progressive majority" for a revaluation, with the current system based on property values dating back to 1991.

"We can change," Mr Wightman told MSPs.

"We can, for example, do a revaluation, this is not a complex matter, this is a simple and straightforward matter with modern techniques."