Chamber and committees

Finally, you have used the term “significant increase”? Could you give us an indication of what “significant” means in that context? “Significant” could mean different things to different people, so it would be helpful to get clarity on that.

I have been listening with interest to the answers that have been given thus far, but I do not believe that it is fair to ask council tax payers to plug gaps in local authority budgets, especially at a time when the level of public services is decreasing. Council tax payers are experiencing a lot of cuts in their communities, which is causing a lot of unrest. I will come on to a question about that in a second.

We have also heard a lot about the discussions between COSLA and the Scottish Government. I am pleased to hear that those discussions are progressing. However, councils will have to grapple with two issues over the next few months as they prepare their budgets—how they can meet workers’ pay demands and how they can address the dissatisfaction that exists with council services. At a previous committee meeting, Unison said that the growing dissatisfaction was “dangerous”.

I would be interested to hear the witnesses’ views on the situation in the round, given that there is a reduced level of trust in local government and that the number of complaints about council services has increased by more than 21 per cent in the past year.

Thank you, convener. We have discussed lobbying the Scottish and UK Governments. Given that council tax revenue makes up roughly 15 to 20 per cent of councils’ overall budgets, do our witnesses believe that this year’s budget could result in another reduction in services? Is it possible that, rather than growing provision in areas of need, there might be a reduction in statutory services? I am thinking about areas such as education, social care and environmental services, which are areas in which people see the impact of direct cuts on their communities.

My question is not for this panel—apologies.

Thank you, convener. Good morning, cabinet secretary and officials. I am interested to hear the cabinet secretary’s view on local authorities being able to increase council tax next year as they see fit.

Last year, in the 2025-26 financial year, we saw Falkirk Council increase its council tax by 15.6 per cent. I am increasingly concerned that if councils follow in that same mind this year, it will have consequences for council tax payers—individuals and families who might be struggling to meet those increased costs.

When it comes to council tax reform, I am interested to hear whether the cabinet secretary believes that, as a point of principle, households on council tax bands E and upwards should pay more in council tax.

I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer, but I hope that she also understands the huge pressure on core budgets. There are areas in which there has been no ring fencing and there are services that have not been protected effectively by the ring fencing of Scottish Government funding. Those are the areas in which there are decreases and cuts to services.

I turn to the issues that councils will be grappling with. We have heard in our evidence sessions that local government is required to meet the pay demands of workers. Heading into budgets, discussions will be on-going on that and also on the growing dissatisfaction with council services. You will have heard Unison’s evidence, which claimed that that was “dangerous”. There is a reduced level of trust in local government, and the number of complaints about council services has increased by 21 per cent over the past year.

I am interested in hearing the cabinet secretary’s view on how she will assist local government with those situations, to find solutions to the issues and to ensure that we do not go into local government budget setting with communities put against councils that are just trying to tackle the financial pressures that they experience in their own local authority areas?

Families of residents at a sheltered housing complex in Falkirk are deeply concerned about plans to outsource care services to an external provider. The proposals, which would remove the round-the-clock care service at Tygetshaugh Court, form part of an effort to address the £21 million budget shortfall. Families were not properly consulted, and local councillors have expressed frustration about their lack of influence over decisions that are made by the integration joint board. Should decisions that directly impact local communities be made by councillors or by an IJB in which the majority are unelected?

You pressed the intervention button.

That is a reserved issue. We are talking about the strains on public services in relation to illegal immigration in this country.

If Kaukab Stewart wants to talk about reserved matters, particularly the ECHR, which I think is an important issue, let us talk about that. A detailed report on that was produced not by a politician but by Lord Wolfson, who is one of the leading King’s counsel in the country. The report said that legal immigration is too high and must come down and that illegal immigration is too high and must come down.

The report also talked about the problems with the ECHR. I am actually looking for a bit of consensus with the minister, because I hope that she would agree that, when there are situations such as that of a convicted paedophile in Glasgow who was prevented from being deported back to the Democratic Republic of Congo because of his right to family life, that shows that there are problems with the ECHR. I hope that the minister is able to agree with me on that point.

I will go back to my point about public services. The Government has let NHS waiting times spiral out of control, has failed to address chronic teacher shortages in crumbling schools and has allowed councils to carry the burden of rising costs with shrinking budgets. That is the neglect that we are talking about. I therefore cannot understand why the Greens continually support the SNP Government when it comes to budgets and coalition Governments. The Government has failed. It has had 18 years to address public service issues in this country and has failed.

I will finish on a point that I have been raising continually over the past few weeks. We have heard the term “community cohesion” a few times. I believe that the Government is serious about community cohesion and wants to try to stop the protests and look at ways in which we can have a more blended community, which is something that I hope everyone would be able to agree with. However, the Government has not been able to maintain the cohesion of public services, which is where the fundamental problems come in.

What do people see in Falkirk, which is in my region? They see hotels filled with asylum seekers at short notice, without a consultation process.

I return to the issue of the demographics of the people who have been arriving, which I have raised before. Across the UK, 62 per cent of asylum seeker claims are from adult males, compared with 21 per cent from adult females. For small boat arrivals, the imbalance is even greater: 75 per cent are adult men and 10 per cent are children. Compare that with the Ukrainian adults who arrived in the UK under the sponsorship and family schemes, most of whom—70 per cent—were women. Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 were not allowed to leave Ukraine. Of all arrivals under those schemes, 27 per cent were under the age of 18.

We need to look at that, because that is what people see, and it is where the anger and distrust are coming from. People are seeing their own needs—their own families, schools and hospitals—pushed further down the priority list.

The SNP Government has had 18 years to fix our public services, and it has failed. That is why we are seeing discontent and distrust in our country.