Chamber and committees

Do you have anything to add, Councillor Hagmann?

You are absolutely right: as we heard at the committee last week, engagement with the public is vital. The message needs to be clear on what we are engaging on, what the proposed outcome will be and what change we are offering the public.

You have probably encapsulated most people’s feelings on the issue, cabinet secretary. Almost everybody has run out of patience with talking about council tax reform and the “unfair council tax” rhetoric. Everybody is fed up hearing about it; we just want to do something about it. Is there a risk that we might go out for another round of engagement and—again—nothing happens? We could face a real risk of reaching a point where everybody is totally fed up with the talk about council tax reform. We are getting to the last chance saloon for reform, and it could end up in a basket marked “too difficult to do”.

In the document “Scotland’s Framework for Tax”, which Willie Coffey mentioned, the Government states:

“We are committed to reforming Council Tax to make it fairer, working ... to oversee the development of effective deliberative engagement on sources of local government funding, including Council Tax, that will culminate in a Citizens’ Assembly.”

That document was published in 2021. Why did it take more than three years to get the engagement process up and running?

It is absolutely appalling that, every single day, thousands of kids are living in the conditions that we hear about in the report. That is despite the Government’s promises to reduce numbers. Every six months, the statistics show that the number of kids in temporary accommodation is growing and growing. Given the report’s findings and the absolutely awful conditions that children are living in, can the minister give a guarantee that, when the next set of statistics is released, we will see a reduction in the number of children living in temporary accommodation?

Yes, I will.

The Local Government Finance (Scotland) Order 2025 is a step in the right direction, but we should look more closely at the claim that it represents a success for the Government. It provides a modest, real-terms increase in the budget for local authorities, but that increase must be taken in context. The 2024-25 council tax freeze alone resulted in a shortfall of £417 million, according to COSLA, and that does not include shortfalls caused by unfunded freezes in previous years. COSLA has also estimated a £392 million projected budget gap for Scottish local authorities in 2025-26, rising to a cumulative gap of £780 million by 2026-27.

Within those figures, the funding gap that is most striking and alarming is the one in health and social care partnerships, which has increased by 187 per cent since 2022-23. Local government has also been given just £777 million of capital to support £55 billion-worth of assets. There are clearly gaping holes in our public estate, which will persist under the settlement.

All that is no one’s fault but the SNP Government’s. Its decisions in successive years have stripped local authorities of their financial resources, but the Government keeps using spin and sleight of hand to try to convince Scotland that others have caused the problems. The truth is that the SNP has been given a record funding agreement by the UK Government, with £5 billion more for this financial year but, because of their choices, that money—

The UK Government has provided the Scottish Government with more than £5 billion extra. Only this SNP Government could complain about an extra £5 billion and somehow portray that as being negative. We often hear in this chamber about voting positions: the SNP voted against that £5 billion increase for the budget of this Parliament and Government, but we never hear anything about that.

I welcome the record funding settlement from the UK Government, but it is impossible to fully reverse the impact of years of SNP mismanagement, billions of pounds in cuts and years of stripping back of council finances.

There is an absolute abundance of evidence to show that local services have suffered hugely in those 18 years. The services that are provided now are practically unrecognisable when compared with those that were provided in 2007. Swimming pools and community spaces such as the Beach leisure centre in Aberdeen or Perth leisure pool, which were used by thousands of people a decade ago, are now closed or threatened with closure. More than 20 public libraries are threatened with closure because of significant funding pressures, with the worst-affected areas covering much of rural Scotland.

It is absolutely ridiculous that we have a valuation system that was set up when I was in primary 1. I am not sure whether Ross Greer had even been born when that valuation exercise was undertaken. The Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee is looking at a revaluation exercise being a first step in reform of the council tax system, and I think that there is broad consensus across the political spectrum on that.

We are seeing councils across the country putting up council tax. It is a hugely unpopular tax, but councillors are making decisions to increase it because the alternative is absolutely unpalatable. The cuts that they would need to make to services would go beyond what they are willing to consider, so they are making unpopular decisions on council tax to cover for those cuts. However, there is a real risk in the fact that, because of successive years of SNP cuts, councils are now making impossible choices and increasing council tax to try to prevent their residents from having to pay more money for worse services as a result of Government choices.

I urge the minister to take a look at the waiting times. This time last year, the then First Minister told members in the chamber that he would personally look into the case of Cody Morrow, a then three-year-old from Bellshill, who has spent his short life waiting for NHS assessment and treatment. Cody is another year into his now four-year wait for a neurological development assessment. His mum is physically and mentally exhausted and she does not know where to turn. Why does four-year-old Cody need to wait until he is seven not to begin treatment, but just to get an assessment?

To ask the Scottish Government what the current average waiting times are for a neurodevelopmental assessment and a speech and language therapy assessment for children and young people in NHS Lanarkshire and in Scotland as a whole. (S6O-04325)