Chamber and committees

Why does the SNP-Green Government no longer see local government as a priority?

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?

Yes, if I can get the time back.

Over £800 million is being passed on to all devolved Governments. That £70 million includes £40 million for local government, £30 million of which is still to be presented for the teaching pay rise. We have not necessarily heard anything from the Government today about how local authorities will meet that. Maybe that is something for stage 2, when we will get more detail.

I want to consider what the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee has been looking at in the budget. Consideration has been given to a number of cuts that local authorities face. We heard from Martin Booth, who is executive director of finance at Glasgow City Council and who was representing the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers. He stated that, from all their negotiations on all the work that was to come in councils, they will have to look at over £34 million of cuts. That was in a leaked document that we saw yesterday. He stated in his evidence:

“The opportunity to increase charges is fairly limited. Quite often, we are a provider of last resort, so the people who would be impacted the most by charging would be those who we would like to impact on the least.”

Therefore, when SNP and Green ministers try to spin the budget as one that delivers fairness for our communities, let us remember that every council across Scotland will be forced to make cuts because of it.

It is little wonder that council leaders such as the SNP Dundee City Council leader, John Alexander, have labelled the budget as

“perhaps the toughest in recent memory”.

I do not think that what has been announced today will make that statement go away or change it. It is slightly less tough, but it will still be tough for local government. We all fear for services and the impact that that will have.

COSLA has been clear that the SNP-Green Government needs to look again at the budgets that it provides to councils. It talks about

“what we need to survive”.

I do not know whether the cabinet secretary has really heard that message. I know that the First Minister met COSLA and council leaders this week, but simply asking the UK Government for £50 million of additional funding to be made available, which I welcome, and the national insurance contribution of £70 million is not enough. We need to have a serious look at that again at stages 2 and 3. I hope that the cabinet secretary has genuinely heard that message, including from the leaders of Highland Council, who have also condemned the budget.

Let us be in no doubt that, if SNP and Green ministers do not look again at local government funding in the budget, the most vulnerable in our society will be hit. The cabinet secretary clearly knows—we know this from every debate in the Parliament—that the Greens’ votes are in the bag and that deals done behind closed doors will see the Government able to get the budget through Parliament. However, I appeal to Green MSPs and every MSP who will be out campaigning for their SNP councillor colleagues to speak out as we see the budget go through. The cuts are SNP-Green ones that will impact on all services. I hope that they will pay a severe price for that at the council elections in May.

Due to administrative decisions that were taken some years ago, the City of Edinburgh Council is losing out on vital resources to help to address homelessness in the capital. For example, last year, Glasgow City Council was able to recover £8.8 million through the health mobilisation plan arrangements, which were administered through its integration joint board. Will Scottish Government ministers agree to review the spending allocation to tackle homelessness so that the capital does not miss out on the equivalent of £9.3 million of funding due to that administrative issue? I am aware that Scottish National Party and Labour leaders of the city have written to the minister on the issue.

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding for local authorities it has allocated in its draft budget to help tackle homelessness. (S6O-00675)

That is helpful. My next question is about opportunities to consult stakeholders properly. The committee has expressed concern that its inquiry and work and the Scottish Government’s consultation work are running beside each other. Are there other opportunities for people to feed in views? Are you concerned about that? Given the pandemic, this has maybe not been the best time for making it a priority to ensure that people are aware of NPF4 and can see what it will mean for their communities. I am happy if anyone wants to add anything on that.

We would like to hear those views. Maybe you could provide them to the committee in writing so that we could include them in our work.

Did Ailsa Macfarlane want to come in on that question?

The committee has received several written submissions expressing concern about possible inconsistencies between the national spatial strategy and national planning policies, which we have already touched on. We know what the policies look like, but language is sometimes a barrier. Different words can mean different things to planners and so change the emphasis. Does the panel have any suggestions of ways to rectify those issues that have been put to us? How can we make sure that local councils and the national planning strategy match up in delivering what we want to see from NPF4? I will bring in Robbie Calvert, who touched on some of that earlier, and anyone else who wants to comment.