The Local Government map of Scotland needs to be redrawn to give Glasgow a fair deal, according to the man who has to balance the city's budget.
Councils have had their funding reduced hugely in the last decade and Glasgow has suffered more than most.
Last week, the city set its budget for the coming year asking council tax payers to dig deeper into their income to fund services, with a 7.5% rise approved.
Read more in the series:
The Future of Glasgow – Find all articles in the series here
Elspeth King: Glasgow history and culture: we need to cherish and share it
Exclusive: Glasgow Commonwealth Games bid to shed 'Europe sick man' tag fails
Why Glasgow is unique and deserves special treatment
The latest settlement from the Scottish Government was £36 million more than the council had planned for, leading to a flat cash budget, but millions of pounds in savings had already been agreed last year.
The bigger picture, however, shows between 2013 and 2023 Glasgow had around half a billion wiped from its budget.
It has led to a reduction in the workforce, services cut to the bone and the need for serious conversations about how councils should be funded.
For our Future of Glasgow series between The Herald and Glasgow Times, we spoke to City Treasurer, Ricky Bell about the city’s finances.
Around 80% of the council’s income is from the Scottish Government the rest comes from council tax, and fees and charges.
Ricky Bell, City Treasurer, wants to be able to grow the amount of money the city raises under its own steam.
And he said the council tax does not work in Glasgow’s favour.
The city has mostly band A and B properties compared with the wealthier neighbours like East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire councils, and fewer in bands F to H.
An example of the limitations of council tax is a 1% rise in council tax raises £2.8m for the council, so the local authority has to impose a big rise for it to translate into significant sums.
This year's increase will bring in £21m.
Councillor Bell said: “The council tax is really regressive and it doesn't work for us at all.
“I mean, the challenge we have is that none of the politicians have had the bottle really to re-evaluate the council tax.
“The property values are massively undervalued, and I understand it because if you re-evaluate the council tax, there'll be winners and there'll be a lot of losers.”
Politics with its five-year election cycle doesn’t lend itself to taking unpopular big decisions that may bear fruit years later.
Bell recognises: “Understandably, politicians are nervous about doing that. But you know, we've said for some considerable time the council tax doesn't work for Glasgow.
“We have created boundaries to create posh suburbs around Glasgow and in your East Dunbartonshires and your East Renfrewshires, where council tax works very well for them because they've got lots of big fancy houses.
“And they have very little poverty in the way that we do. We have almost the flip side of that. We've got very small areas of the city where the big houses are and a lot of poverty.”
Analysis
Analysis of statistics from the Scottish Assessors Association illustrates the difference.
Glasgow has 329,623 properties liable for Council Tax from bands A to H.
The band with the highest number is B, with 81,879.
There is a split of 83% in band A-D - the lowest - and 17% in band E to H - the highest.
In East Renfrewshire, which includes Newton Mearns, Giffnock and Clarkston, of the 41,222 total properties, the highest number are in band E.
The split is 43% in the four lower bands and 57% in the higher.
Despite Glasgow being a much bigger local authority, East Renfrewshire has more band H homes than Glasgow, 796 to 684.
In East Dunbartonshire, which includes Bearsden, Milngavie and Lenzie, of the 48,350 properties the highest is also band E.
The split in East Dunbartonshire is 46% in the lower four and 54% in the higher four.
The Scottish picture also shows the city at a disadvantage.
Of the total 2,751,928 homes band B is the most common.
The split nationwide is not as wide as in Glasgow.
Bands A to D has 72% and bands E to H has 28%.
Edinburgh has 4436 band H properties 684, more than six times the number Glasgow has.
Some of the powers from the government around property also don’t’ benefit Glasgow in any meaningful way.
The City Treasurer said: “The government has now given us, and we will use, the power to double the council tax on holiday homes.”
He notes, however, that there are not so many holiday homes in Glasgow.
Mr Bell added: “It's Glaswegians who often have holiday homes elsewhere and they are paying that money to other councils who are benefiting from that. We don't gain from that at all.”
He had been an advocate of the tourist tax or visitor levy that Glasgow will now be able to use to raise money and he has some other ideas and they may be controversial.
Those ideas involve, in the absence of being able to annexe the wealthy suburbs, getting money from their residents if they come to Glasgow for work or leisure.
Other ideas being considered are a toll on the Clyde Tunnel and a congestion charge for drivers outside Glasgow.
The Treasurer has his eye on the wealthier people just outside Glasgow, adding “We have loads of people who come into the city every single day to work, to play, to do whatever, who make no contribution to the city.”
“We would like to be in a position where we can ask people in the suburbs around about the city to make a contribution to the city as well.”
These ideas are being actively looked at, what powers are needed and being costed to determine what benefit each would bring.
Ultimately he wants cash to be generated by the city and decisions taken by the city.
Mr Bell said “We need to have more money that we can spend on what the priorities are of Glaswegians.
“If we can get a congestion charge or a tunnel tolling tax that comes with no strings attached, that allows us to spend the money on being able to help some of our citizens who are in difficult situations and struggling.
"And invest in the city, invest in the infrastructure, making it an even better place to come and that's the thing about the visitor levy. The more you spend in the city, the better it looks and feels, the more people will come to visit, the more people pay the tourist tax.”
There is more autonomy at present he said but still not enough.
He said: "I think we've seen a bit of that relaxed, certainly in this year's budget, Shona Robinson's been very clear with us that she has not ring fenced as much of the budget.
"I would argue that they shouldn't ring fence any of the budget. We are the democratically elected politicians of the city and we should set the priorities for the city and spend the money accordingly."
The solution for Glasgow's finances, favoured by the man in charge of the city budget is to redraw the map.
It has been done before and could be done again but he is less optimistic it would gain approval.
He said: “If it was up to me, I'd change the boundaries and I'd just bring them all in and make it one council but I suspect that I'm not going to win that argument with the government at the moment, or probably even if it's a different government.
“If I don't think there's an appetite to make that kind of change. So we have to look at other ways.”
Share