Report to the People
Local Government Finance
Hands up all those who don’t use council services….
Not many. And those of you who are attracting the attention of onlookers by holding an arm in the air whilst reading your evening paper are, perhaps, stranger than you currently look. You never need to have your bins emptied, do not walk on pavements, don’t educate your children and will never need, in later years, some help looking after yourself.
Almost all of us rely on local government services every day. It is therefore vital that councils are able to deliver good quality, efficient services. In order to achieve this, however, we need a modern local government finance system based on consensus that is not itself the subject of annual controversy.
Last week the Scottish Parliament debated what has been described as the "most radical reform of the local government finance system for 20 years." The aim of the reforms is to bring a fresh stability and certainty to council spending and Council Tax, enabling councils to better plan their revenue expenditure and capital investment, increase efficiency and improve service delivery.
The key reform brought about by this package is that, from now on, in line with other government spending, local authorities will be awarded their grants over three years. This means that Inverclyde Council will be given a firm figure on the amount of grant it will receive, together with a guaranteed minimum increase in that grant.
This move will end those sterile annual arguments over funding, which frustrate officials and the public alike.
As consumers of local government services, we will also have added security. Inverclyde Council will have a duty to publish our Council Tax levels for the same three year period, helping us to better plan our family finances.
Other main points of the package include the improvement of the formula for distributing resources, and scrapping councils’ spending guidelines.
Of course, simply changing the system is not enough. An effective system must have adequate funds to distribute. That is why the Scottish Executive has announced an extra £1.2 billion for Scotland’s local authorities over the next three years.
Increased cash sums, coupled with a modern, efficient and stable system of finance, will ensure that our local services are properly funded and can deliver the high standards we expect.
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