Official Report 197KB pdf
The next item is the paper on student council tax. Members will recall that City of Edinburgh Council wrote to us to point out the anomalies in council tax that arose when students were living in flats with non-students. Morag Brown has prepared a paper on the issue that was sent out with committee papers. I suggest that we hold a short inquiry into the issue, as it is quite complex. However, we would not need to do that immediately; if members agree, we could hold it over until the committee has a quieter moment—if that day ever arrives.
I would like us to clarify the terms of the inquiry. Would we be dealing specifically with the way in which students are affected by council tax, or would there be an opportunity to consider other anomalies? One of my constituents has on a number of occasions raised with me the inability of a broad banding system to reflect specific issues, such as the M77 being built next door to somebody's home. In those circumstances, people might not drop down a band but the value of their property might be affected. We would need to be clear about the terms of the inquiry, so that it did not spread into other areas.
Eugene Windsor will come back with terms of reference. If we undertook a much wider inquiry, we might start to stray into the area of finance—on which there may be an independent review. The terms of the inquiry might be narrow to start with but, if we were to extend it to finance, such an issue would be noted.
I support what you have just said, convener. I am well aware of the case to which Johann Lamont is referring, which has been a long-running saga in Pollok. I am very sympathetic to pursuing proposals for legislative change to exempt students from or reduce their liability for council tax. However, we need to consider not only how individuals are affected, but how local authorities are affected. If there is to be legislation that would deprive local authorities of income, we must discuss how that shortfall would be made good. I hope that we would receive information indicating how much of local authorities' income is derived from students and how they would be affected by any changes. I imagine that certain local authorities, particularly Glasgow City Council, City of Edinburgh Council and other authorities with large student populations, would be affected disproportionately. I realise that it would be not be very cost-effective to collect that information, but we would need it.
Morag Brown says in her paper that the issue of student council tax is particularly relevant to larger cities.
The inquiry should have a narrow focus. Johann Lamont deserves a brownie point from her constituent, but we should stick to the issue of student council tax. The proportion of council tax that goes to cover water charges will increase much more than ordinary council tax and is treated in a totally different way. That is another serious issue that deserves careful thought.
Would we take on board the impact of any changes on other people in a residence where students were living?
Yes.