Local Government Finance Settlement 2008 to 2011
The next item of business is a statement by John Swinney on the local government finance settlement for 2008 to 2011. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of his statement, but I stress that those are to be for clarification only, as a full debate will follow. There should be no interventions during the statement.
Four weeks ago, I delivered the Government's first budget, in which I set out our spending plans for the next three years. I explained how the budget will enable us to deliver on our plans to make Scotland a more successful country. At that time, we also signed the historic concordat between the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which signalled a new and much more productive relationship with local government—one that recognises local authorities' unique role in the delivery of public services. The concordat represents a significant shift in the way in which national Government works with local government. Built on mutual respect, it creates the basis for national and local government to work together to develop an agenda of common purpose that will improve the lives and communities of the people of Scotland.
Last month, I announced that the Government is investing record sums in local government, with a package that is worth more than £34.7 billion in the next three years. Today, I will announce details of our spending plans within that overall total, to which some additional transfers to local government have been confirmed since my earlier announcement. The plans have been discussed with COSLA and demonstrate our commitment to work together with local government. I will also announce the non-domestic rate poundage in Scotland for the next year. Copies of summary tables that contain key information from the announcement are available at the back of the chamber.
I can announce that additional funding of £37 million in 2008-09, £34 million in 2009-10 and £34 million in 2010-11 has been added to the sums for local government that I announced previously. That relates mainly to additional specific grant funding, police loan charge support and funding from the Department for Work and Pensions for supported employment. Taking into account those changes, the overall local government settlement provides £11.2 billion in 2008-09, £11.6 billion in the subsequent year and £12 billion in the final year of the spending review period. Those sums represent considerable increases in local government funding and mean that, by 2010-11, funding will have increased by £1.4 billion, or 12.9 per cent, from the equivalent amount in 2007-08. That has been achieved despite our receiving from the United Kingdom Treasury the tightest settlement since devolution.
Of course, in other budgets, there will be further additional funding for local government, which will be confirmed in due course, including the funding for the popular Edinburgh tram project and transfers from the enterprise budget in respect of the business gateway. It does not stop there. Local government will also benefit from European social fund and regional development fund receipts, which in 2008-09 will amount to almost £55 million.
Overall, therefore, the funding package is substantial, which demonstrates the commitment and importance that this Government attaches to sustaining and improving the public services that are provided for our local communities.
Let me turn to the detail. I will start by giving a breakdown of revenue funding, which makes up the majority of the local government settlement. It will amount to £10.2 billion in 2008-09, which represents a 4.2 per cent increase on the equivalent figure for 2007-08. It will increase by a further 4.3 per cent, to £10.6 billion, in 2009-10 and by another 3.7 per cent, to just over £11 billion, in 2010-11. Overall, revenue funding input is being increased by 12.7 per cent across the period, which is a significant increase in such a tight settlement.
That record level of investment in local government resources is only one part of the package that we agreed with COSLA in our concordat. The concordat also contains a commitment to reduce ring fencing, which will give local authorities much greater freedom to allocate their resources and will open up more opportunities for efficiencies. For the first time, we are giving local authorities the opportunity to retain all their efficiency savings to redeploy to front-line services.
To emphasise that we want to concentrate on what really impacts on individuals and communities, we are moving away from a focus on processes and inputs to one on outcomes. In other words, we are telling local authorities and their partners what the national priorities are on which we must all focus. We want local and national Government to concentrate the resources at our disposal in the most effective and efficient way that we can to deliver on those outcomes. That includes working together to support vulnerable people—an area in which local authorities have been key players for many years.
I will set out how the distribution has been calculated. First of all, in line with the concordat, detailed discussions have been held with COSLA about the distribution of the funding. In those discussions, both sides agreed that it was important to ensure stability. Although that does not rule out further work to refine and improve the distribution mechanism—for example, when more reliable or more appropriate data sources can be used—we agreed that, for spending allocations to local authorities, the existing methodology that underpins the allocations process should be maintained.
We have, of course, updated the distribution indicators to incorporate the latest information on population, deprivation, school numbers, police numbers and other indicators. In short, funding that was previously earmarked, through local government, for deprivation, victims of domestic violence, mental health, homelessness and supporting people, or for any of the previously ring-fenced grants that are now rolled up, such as for flooding, will still be allocated to the same councils in the same way and according to the same practice as before. I have the highest confidence that our local authority partners will continue to deliver strong support in those areas through the national outcomes.
Before I leave distribution issues, there is one further point that I wish to make. I have received representations from a number of quarters that the funding that is allocated to the City of Edinburgh Council does not take sufficient account of the impact on Edinburgh of its role as Scotland's capital city.
Hear, hear.
I am glad that Lord Foulkes agrees with me.
I recognise that Edinburgh is increasingly a gateway to the rest of Scotland for visitors and businesses, and that the developments that are needed to sustain and grow Edinburgh will be of benefit well beyond the capital city. Although the distribution formula that we use in the local government settlement takes account of, for example, visitor numbers, travel-to-work flows and population change, l believe that there is a case for examining the funding implications that arise from that wider role. As a first step, I have agreed that a study that will inform that process will be undertaken jointly with the City of Edinburgh Council. I would like the study to be concluded in time for my settlement announcement for 2009-10.
We have retained another aspect of the distribution mechanism that is designed to ensure stability—the so-called floor mechanism. To provide a fair comparison with 2007-08 and to maintain stability, the floor adjustment has been applied to the total core funding package, excluding all the new specific grant funding streams that have been incorporated into the settlement from 2008-09. The mechanism ensures that all councils receive at least a minimum increase in grant.
That, too, has been discussed and agreed with COSLA and is in keeping with our new partnership arrangements. Today, I confirm that we are setting the floor at 3.4 per cent for 2008-09, 3 per cent for 2009-10, and 2.5 per cent for 2010-11. The councils that will benefit directly from the measure are: in 2008-09, Eilean Siar, East Ayrshire, Inverclyde, Glasgow City, West Dunbartonshire and South Ayrshire; in 2009-10, Eilean Siar, Renfrewshire and the Shetland Islands; and in 2010-11, Eilean Siar, Renfrewshire, the City of Edinburgh, the Shetland Islands and East Dunbartonshire. That will guarantee that all councils receive at least a minimum year-on-year increase in grant support for core services in each of the next three years.
I gave the background to the revenue figures earlier. Included in the revenue funding is an element of loan charge support to help local authorities service their existing debt and provide support for more than £300 million of new borrowing in each of the next three years to help finance capital programmes. Investment in infrastructure is vital to growing the economy, which is why we have significantly increased the capital budget for local authorities. Some £3 billion will be invested in local authority capital during the period. We have front-loaded the investment so that local authorities get the main benefit in the first financial year, with £975 million in 2008-09. That represents a 13.3 per cent increase in the capital budget for local authorities. The equivalent figures for the remainder of the spending review period are £993 million and £994 million.
That substantial increase in capital funding gives local authorities the opportunity to increase their investment in assets that are central to the delivery of quality public services such as schools, housing, flood prevention and roads. In particular, the increase will help councils to plan for the investment that is required to deliver the reduction in class sizes in primaries 1 to 3. As with the revenue funding, a number of specific grants have been rolled up into a general capital grant block. Of the £975 million of capital funding that will be provided in 2008-09, only £278 million will be ring fenced for specific purposes. Local authorities will have the freedom to allocate the remaining funding according to their local priorities.
The significant level of capital funding shows our commitment to supporting a strong, planned programme of capital investment in infrastructure by local authorities and delivering on the commitments that we have set out. In 2007-08, £2.7 billion of the funding that is given to local authorities is ring fenced. That means that we have more than 60 individual funding streams, each of which has to be accounted for individually. There are 60 sets of agreements with each local authority, 60 reports from each local authority and 60 sets of regulations by the Scottish Government. Those are all part of the micromanagement in which the Government has been involved in Scotland.
The Government wants to give local authorities the freedom, flexibility and respect to meet national and local priorities and to manage their own resources. That is why we are rolling up more than 40 grants that are worth more than £1.7 billion next year, and we will go further by 2010-11. Our approach involves a substantial reduction in the bureaucracy that is associated with all the reporting and monitoring that accompanied the former specific grants. Local authorities, working with their lead partners, will be able to plan their services in a more cohesive and integrated fashion instead of configuring services to meet the rules of ring fencing.
Although the change is significant, it should not be taken out of context. In 2007-08, some three quarters of the funding from central Government to local government is not ring fenced. Under the concordat, we are extending the element that is not ring fenced to about 90 per cent. A relatively small number of specific grants will remain ring fenced. The largest of those is the police grant, which in 2008-09 amounts to £600 million. I will add some further comments on that.
Funding for the police service in Scotland is contained in the overall local government settlement. About half the funding is provided directly to police authorities as police grant. That amount will remain ring fenced. The balance is provided to police authorities by local authorities. In the next few years, the police service will experience a relatively high level of retirements, which in turn will lead to higher pension costs. I give an assurance today not only that the police grant includes an uplift for police pay and inflation and for the completion of the levelling-up commitment that was begun in the previous spending review but that the cost of police pensions is included within the wider settlement.
The list of ring-fenced grants that will continue also includes the new fairer Scotland fund for improving lives through regenerating communities, which will be worth £145 million in the next financial year and is the result of rolling up seven smaller grants, including the former community regeneration fund. The allocation to councils of each retained specific grant for the next three years is set out in the finance circular that is being sent to each local authority today.
The concordat and the budget document both include a commitment to move to a single outcome agreement for every council, based on the agreed national outcomes and indicators. Through the single outcome agreements, we will know whether there is delivery across council areas. We, together with local government, are committed to having agreements in place for every local authority, and I want them to be in place by 1 April 2008. We agree that we should seek to have similar agreements in place for all councils and their community planning partners by 1 April 2009 at the latest. Together, they will help to achieve our aim of making Scotland a more successful country.
The overarching purpose that we have set out for this Government is focusing public services on creating a more successful country with opportunities for all Scotland to flourish through increasing sustainable economic growth. Through our concordat with local government, we have, for the first time, aligned the focus of national and local government on shared national outcomes and national priorities—to focus what we want to achieve together for Scotland.
The Government's economic strategy and the budget last month show how we will deliver on that. Today's settlement creates the environment in which local authorities can make an even greater contribution to improving the lives of the people of Scotland. In the concordat and in the local government settlement, we have shown how we will back our commitments.
For example, in education, we will work to improve the learning experience for children and young people in schools and nurseries; to reduce class sizes to a maximum of 18 in primaries 1 to 3 as quickly as possible; to make substantial progress towards a 50 per cent increase in pre-school entitlement with access to a nursery teacher for every child; and to give more pupils opportunities to experience vocational learning. We have also signed up to extend entitlement to nutritious free school meals to all primary and secondary school pupils in families that are in receipt of maximum child or working tax credit and to provide allowances for kinship carers of looked-after children.
In community care, we have agreed to improve care homes, increase the current standard payment levels for free personal care and deliver an extra 10,000 respite care weeks per year at home and in care homes, along with additional resources for local care centres.
For justice, we are providing £54 million over three years to recruit an additional 500 police officers by 2011 as part of our commitment to make an additional 1,000 police officers available in our communities through increased recruitment, retention and redeployment.
Another commitment in the concordat is that council tax rates in each local authority will be frozen at 2007-08 levels. We have made an additional £70 million available in the next financial year to cover the cost of a council tax freeze so that each council can keep its council tax at 2007-08 rates. On average, households in Scotland across all income and council tax bands will be better off with a council tax freeze.
The measure to freeze the council tax is, of course, the first step to reduce the burden of local taxation. That work will continue with our proposals to replace the council tax with a fairer local tax. While our proposals are being developed, the council tax freeze will give some respite to people who have seen their council tax bills grow by well above the rate of inflation over the past decade under the previous Administration.
We are also making things better for businesses in Scotland. Small businesses are the life-blood of our communities and we want to provide them with the competitive advantage that they need. The Government's economic strategy identifies lower business taxation for small and medium-sized businesses as one of a range of measures to create a more supportive business environment and increase sustainable economic growth in Scotland.
There has long been consensus that the current system is unfair on small business. Business rates account for a higher proportion of fixed costs for small companies than they do for larger businesses. That is why we are introducing the small business bonus scheme from 1 April 2008 to deliver a substantial reduction in the burden of business rates for the smallest businesses, which will benefit the most.
The new scheme, which will be administered by local authorities, will give firms the freedom and resources that they seek to grow and to invest in their future, creating more and better-paid jobs and increasing the vibrancy of our villages, towns and cities.
A fairer taxation system is vital if we are to attract and retain the best businesses to grow and thrive in Scotland and in our local communities. In our economic strategy, we gave a commitment to
"ensure that the business poundage rate in Scotland will not rise above the English rate during the lifetime of the Parliament".
I can confirm today that the Scottish non-domestic rates poundage will be 45.8p for 2008-09—the same as in England. The modest poundage supplement, which larger businesses pay on properties with a rateable value of more than £29,000, will be set at 0.4p, again in line with England. That means that Scottish firms, large and small, will not pay more in rates than comparable businesses south of the border, which is more than could be said under the previous Administration.
Finally, I will talk about another key player in delivering our public services—the third sector. The Government attaches the greatest importance to developing the role of that sector. That is why we are substantially increasing our own funding to the third sector to more than £93 million over the next three years. Of that, £30 million will be for our new Scottish investment fund, which is designed to make social enterprises more sustainable in the longer term and better placed to deliver quality public services. I encourage local authorities to foster a positive relationship with the third sector and to recognise the enormous contribution that the third sector can make to the delivery of our shared national outcomes.
I am delighted to be able to present the detail of the local government settlement to Parliament today, knowing that it is based on a new relationship and joint working with local authorities; that the Government is putting record levels of investment into local authorities; and that we have taken the right decision to open up resources for local government, which will create new and better opportunities for the people, the businesses and the communities of Scotland. That relationship opens a new era. Working in partnership with local government, we can make Scotland a much more successful country.
The cabinet secretary will now take questions for clarification only—as members are aware, there is a debate to follow—for which I intend to allow 20 minutes.
I thank the cabinet secretary for the advance copy of his statement. In the settlement only £175 million—or 0.5 per cent—is available for services. The rest of the uplift is to cover 2.7 per cent inflation and the cost of the council tax freeze. For clarification, are the parents of children with disabilities to assume that the £34 million consequential for them is to be found from within that £175 million?
The cabinet secretary stated:
"the cost of police pensions is included within the wider settlement."
How much is the cost of police pensions, and how much, therefore—for clarification—will be left to fund the Government's manifesto commitments and the commitments and priorities of local authorities throughout Scotland?
The settlement is the largest ever given to local authorities in their history. It represents a 4.9 per cent increase in the budget and funding for local authorities, which is—in a very tight settlement—an extremely good deal for local government and for public services. Of course, if Mr Kerr had his way, only a proportion of the resources that this Government is delivering would be allocated to local authorities.
I mentioned in my statement the importance of our commitment, which is enshrined in the concordat, to the delivery of additional respite care weeks for children in Scotland. I simply point out to Mr Kerr that the line about the £34 million figure has been advanced by the Labour Party for some time, and that I have looked with great care at what is offered by the rest of the United Kingdom. The rest of the United Kingdom is offering a package that is inferior to the objectives that we have set out in the settlement.
Mr Kerr must adjust to the fact that there is a new way of working in Scotland—he will possibly be the last person to adjust to it, as he has spent all his time trying to thwart the sensible and productive co-operation between the Government and local authorities of all political persuasions throughout the country that is leading to a refreshing way forward for local authorities.
I have given details on police pensions, respite care and various other matters, and I have spoken about local authorities' ability to retain their efficiency savings. We should accept that the settlement is a very good deal for local authorities. I thought that Mr Kerr would have welcomed it in the spirit of grace that he brings to the chamber.
On Monday, the cabinet secretary said that even if every council in Scotland freezes its council tax, perhaps upwards of 40 per cent of pensioners in Scotland who are eligible for council tax benefit will not claim it. What will the Government do in collaboration with local government and the UK Government to ensure that people who are entitled to council tax help get it?
Mr Brownlee asks a fair question, as that issue has been a recurring—[Interruption.] I do not know what Labour members are muttering about. Guess who presided over council tax benefit take-up rate failures for eight years?
The Administration is determined to raise awareness of the matter that Mr Brownlee raises and to make it as easy as possible for individuals who are eligible to apply for council tax benefit to apply for and receive it. We will work with our local authority partners to raise awareness of the issue and to undertake activities that we can undertake to improve the unacceptable take-up rate of council tax benefit by individuals who are entitled to claim it.
I thank the cabinet secretary for the advance copy of his statement.
Will the cabinet secretary confirm that the council tax freeze is for one year only, as the president of COSLA has said? How will councils be able to take sensible decisions for the long term if they do not know how much of Mr Swinney's £70 million pot of money they will get on top of what is in today's announcement? What method will be used to distribute that money to councils? Will distribution be on a population basis, will it be based on existing grant-aided expenditure share or will it be based on whether the administration is an SNP administration? Can the cabinet secretary guarantee that no local social work service, primary school or home help will face cuts as a result of the settlement? Finally, now that he has abolished regional transport partnerships in all but name by removing their capital allocations, what will he do if a council fails to fund transport services adequately?
Perhaps we have found the second last person who will adjust to the new way of working in Scotland.
Local authorities make their council tax decisions annually. I have put adequate funding into the funding settlement to support a council tax freeze for the duration of the three years that the settlement covers. If members will bear with me, I will illustrate the distribution method for the £70 million to pay for the council tax freeze. If, for example, a local authority currently collects 4 per cent of total council tax revenue in Scotland, it will get 4 per cent of the £70 million. I clarified that matter to the Local Government and Communities Committee last week and to the Finance Committee on Monday. I understand that local authorities have broadly welcomed that distribution mechanism.
On the funding of public services, Mr Scott should be aware of the scale of the increase that has been delivered. There has been a 4.9 per cent increase in funding, local authorities can retain their efficiency savings, ring fencing has been relaxed and the Government is determined to change the excessive scrutinising of local authority affairs.
Mr Finnie was on the radio this morning. I listened to him with interest and must share with members the excellent thing that he said. He said that undertaking micromanagement is the road to ruin. We have learned the lesson that Mr Finnie was talking about on the radio. We are not going to micromanage local authority services; we are going to give local authorities the ability to exercise flexibility in the design of their local services.
Mr Stevenson and I, along with our colleagues from COSLA, had an excellent discussion with regional transport partnerships on Tuesday. We discussed how regional transport partnerships can make a contribution to the wider delivery of transport priorities throughout Scotland. Mr Stevenson and I will consider the output of that meeting swiftly, to ensure that we can work effectively with regional transport partnerships.
Does the cabinet secretary agree that it is utterly iniquitous of Labour members to hint—as they have done in recent weeks—that the removal of ring fencing from Scottish councils' budgets in some way impacts adversely on vulnerable service users? Does he share my view that local authorities care deeply about the people in the communities that they represent and deliver services to—
Mr Gibson, this is questions for clarification on the minister's statement. Will you be careful and get quickly to the clarification bit?
Does the cabinet secretary agree that to infer otherwise is to insult local government staff and councillors, who work for an improvement in people's lives, day in, day out, week in, week out?
Not for the first time, I agree with the points that Kenneth Gibson makes. He raises a serious issue. I have listened with interest to the different discussions that have taken place about the arrangements that the new Government is putting in place in its work with local authorities. Some of the criticism of the removal of ring fencing almost assumes that local authorities are just waiting for the opportunity to punish vulnerable people for being vulnerable. That is exactly what Labour members have been suggesting in countless committee meetings and in countless debates in the chamber.
I am putting in place arrangements that I think will lead to a sharing of priorities and work to deliver outcomes that will benefit the people of Scotland. That process is having a positive and constructive effect on the debate about public services. In considering the stances of the previous Government, I was interested to read an answer that Mr McCabe gave in 2003, as the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care, to a question from Linda Fabiani. At that time, Linda Fabiani was very off-message, as she was demanding the ring fencing of funding for services. Mr McCabe said:
"Authorities have the flexibility to decide how to use the total resources available to meet local needs and priorities, including respite care."—[Official Report, Written Answers, 17 November 2003; S2W-3862.]
I very much agree with Mr McCabe.
I ask for clarification from the cabinet secretary. He stated that funding that was previously earmarked through local government for such issues as domestic violence and supporting people will be allocated to councils in the same way. How will the voluntary sector agencies that provide support to vulnerable groups be able to monitor how those funds are being spent? Also, how will the specific grants that were allocated on the basis of bids, such as the strategic waste fund, be allocated in the future?
Those are two different questions. On the question of the strategic waste fund, we will allocate resources in discussion with local authorities on the design of services and infrastructure of that nature. On the question of funding for projects such as those that deal with domestic violence, many local authorities in many areas where their budgets are not ring fenced are already involved in partnerships with voluntary sector organisations in the provision of such services.
How resources are being used will be assessed through a combination of the focus on delivering the national outcomes and indicators that were included in the budget statement on 14 November; the single outcome agreements that will be negotiated with each local authority to structure the design of services and to ensure that commitments are in place; and the mechanisms that the Government has put in place—it rather surprised me that these were not part of the furniture of government previously—to have regular dialogue with local authorities to discuss progress in implementing the priorities in the concordat. The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning and I had the first of our review meetings with the COSLA leadership team just yesterday. It was a very constructive discussion, in which everybody was focused on how to make Scotland a more successful country.
Following his remarks to the Finance Committee on Monday, is the cabinet secretary going to give councils the power to set business rates locally, or is he planning a pilot scheme to allow councils to keep the growth in business rates income?
How does the SNP's slash-and-burn attack on Highlands and Islands Enterprise square with assisting local councils in the north with economic development? Is the £50 million that is being cut from the HIE budget to be transferred to local councils? If so, on what basis?
When Mr McArthur attended the Finance Committee's meeting on Monday, he will have heard me say that a proposal that I am interested in examining further—I made it quite clear on Monday that this is not the Government's position but is something that I am prepared to consider—is to give local authorities the power to reduce business rates from the national poundage that I have confirmed today. The objectives in giving local authorities such a power would be to incentivise growth in particular areas and to enable local authorities to retain some of the growth in revenue that is delivered as a consequence of any change. I have no specific proposals in that regard but, in response to questions from the Finance Committee, I felt it important to share my thinking on that point.
On support for businesses in the Highlands and Islands, I am pretty sure that businesses in Kirkwall, Stromness and other towns in Mr McArthur's constituency will welcome the fact that, as a consequence of the Government's decisions, they will not have to pay as much in business rates and can therefore invest more in their businesses.
I welcome the cabinet secretary's confirmation that, in spite of all the scaremongering that we have heard from the Opposition, the rolled-up moneys have not disappeared from the settlement. I seek clarification on one of the areas in which moneys have been rolled up. I think that the cabinet secretary has been clear on the matter but, for the avoidance of doubt, can he confirm that the money that would have been available to Scotland's cities had the cities growth fund remained ring fenced will continue to be available to Scotland's cities? How will that money be allocated?
The resources are rolled up into the local government settlement, so the money that was there for the cities growth fund continues to be there. It has been distributed to local authorities on the same pattern as it was when it was ring fenced.
For clarification, will the minister tell me what benefit a one-year council tax freeze will give to constituents such as mine in Glasgow Shettleston who already receive full council tax benefit and to the 20 per cent of Scottish households overall that receive full council tax benefit?
Clearly, if people are not paying the council tax, they are unlikely to get any additional benefit—they are not paying anything in the first place. It will be very welcome news and a relief to those pensioners in Mr McAveety's constituency who are paying full council tax that they do not have to put up with another council tax increase, like those that his Government delivered on such a number of occasions over such a number of years. [Interruption.] As Karen Whitefield and other members well know, the Labour Government presided over many council tax increases in Glasgow before the city council bucked the trend of that spendthrift administration, which put up council tax by 60 per cent in 10 years.
The cabinet secretary chooses his words with care. In his statement, he referred to the Government's
"proposals to replace the council tax with a fairer local tax."
The observant will notice that the word "income" was missing. Just in case of any SNP U-turn by stealth, perhaps the finance secretary could confirm that it is still the SNP Government's intention to introduce a "local income tax" at a nationally determined rate, as is stated in the SNP manifesto.
If my memory serves me right, one of Mr McLetchie's heroines used the phrase:
"You turn if you want to".
I assure Mr McLetchie that the Government is determined to introduce to Parliament proposals to deliver a local income tax with a national rate, just as we promised in the election campaign. I look forward to the enthusiastic support of Mr McLetchie in easing that proposal through the parliamentary scrutiny process.
Will the cabinet secretary clarify exactly the impact of the business rate poundage, especially in relation to the supplement? What are the differences between Scotland now and the situation under previous Administrations? Can he tell us from his discussions with the representatives of small businesses how they feel about the small business rates scheme?
I confirm to Mr Adam that, for 16 of the 18 years of the Conservative Government, Scotland had higher business rates than in England. For each of the eight years of the Labour and Liberal Administration, we had higher business rates. Now, rather than punishing businesses as the previous Administration did, this progressive SNP Government has introduced business rates that will fall for small companies and a business rate poundage that is pegged to the same level as south of the border. I also confirm that the Government's small business proposals have been warmly welcomed by the representatives of the small business community to whom I have spoken.
The cabinet secretary said that, because of the cut in ring fencing, there will be a substantial reduction in the bureaucracy associated with reporting and monitoring. Will there be any central Government job losses as a result of reduced bureaucracy?
I confirmed to the Local Government and Communities Committee that it was likely that fewer people would be involved in bureaucracy by the end of this Government than at the start because more people would be involved in delivering front-line services. I think that that will be warmly welcomed around the chamber.
We want to ensure that as many of the resources that we have at our disposal as possible are focused on delivering quality front-line interventions, rather than undertaking a vast number of processes that result in a lot of meaningless bureaucracy that is gathered by the Scottish Government.
That ends questions of clarification to the cabinet secretary.