IT must have felt like Mission Impossible: make sure no-one in Scotland pays a penny more in council tax in the coming year. But Finance Secretary John Swinney accepted the task and now it looks as if he has succeeded. Twenty-six of Scotland's 32 lo
cal authorities have already officially set their council tax at the same level as last year. Another five – including Edinburgh – were set to do so today, leaving just Angus to complete the picture next week.
The council tax freeze is a major coup for the SNP government and in particular Mr Swinney, who had to come up with the deal and negotiate with council leaders to make it happen. There is a price to pay, of course, both for the government and for ordinary people. Mr Swinney handed the councils an extra £70m in order to freeze their tax levels. But there will still be cuts in services and some authorities have admitted jobs will be lost.
Nevertheless, even the SNP's political opponents are privately ready to give the government credit for their achievement.
"They have played it very cleverly," says one senior Labour politician in Edinburgh. "It was impossible for councils to say they would rather not take the money and put the council tax up instead. By delivering a council tax freeze, the SNP will be forgiven much else they fail to do." The council tax – introduced to replace the hated poll tax back in 1993 – has increased substantially over the years.
In Edinburgh, bills have soared by nearly a third just since devolution. Householders in Band D properties, regarded as the average, now pay £1169 a year in the Capital compared with £889 in 1999-2000. All the parties knew it was an issue they had to address. Labour fought last year's Holyrood election with a pledge that all Labour-controlled councils would peg council tax rises at below inflation for the next four years. They would also have cut, then scrapped, water and sewerage charges for pensioners, saving around £300.
The Tories proposed a 50 per cent council tax discount for pensioner households. The SNP's pledge was to freeze council tax for two years before bringing in a local income tax set nationally at 3p in the pound.
The Lib Dems said they wanted to scrap council tax and bring in a local income tax, set by councils, at around 3.6p in the pound.
When the SNP found itself elected as a minority government, the council tax freeze quickly became one of its top priorities. There was no guarantee of success in trying to persuade 32 councils, many of whom were not political friends, to co-operate in a daunting challenge which would allow the new government to claim a major victory. But the SNP pulled it off – and embarrassed Labour into the bargain, by showing they could forge a better relationship with Scottish local government in a few months than the previous Scottish Executive had managed in eight years.
NOT only did Mr Swinney get the councils to accept a freeze, he also agreed a "concordat" with them, setting out how central and local government will work together over the next three years.
It includes the reduction in ring-fencing – the government allocating specific amounts of cash for specific purposes – and allows the councils more flexibility to decide how money is spent.
Instead, each local authority signs up to "outcome agreements" covering a whole range of responsibilities.
And councils are also allowed to keep money from efficiency savings. Labour and Liberal Democrat MSPs accuse the SNP of holding a gun to councils' heads and forcing them into agreeing a freeze.
But the councils are not complaining. After Mr Swinney announced the local government settlement in November, Pat Watters, the president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla), hailed it as "the start of a new relationship between the two spheres of government in Scotland".
The cash was "not brilliant" but there would be "greater flexibility and greater responsibility" for councils.
A Labour insider admits the SNP has simply been better at engaging with local government.
Relations between the previous Labour-Lib Dem Scottish Executive and Cosla "could have been more positive", he says.
"There was a feeling of looking down on local government, but now these guys are being wined and dined and smooth-talked by senior ministers."
Cosla is not shy about welcoming the new respect it is being shown – and any time Wendy Alexander cares to touch on local government at First Minister's Questions, Alex Salmond is quick to quote Mr Watters and other Labour councillors, one of whom allegedly went as far as commenting: "God bless the SNP government".
It is deeply damaging to Labour's credibility. A senior Labour MSP says: "Pat Watters is manna from heaven for Alex Salmond."
Effectively, the council tax freeze has allowed the SNP to humiliate Labour, take the credit for the zero rise and leave the councils to take the blame for the cuts. The problems could come in the years ahead – finding enough money to repeat the freeze and then, when they have to argue for a local income tax, which could leave a lot of people worse off.
The full article contains 909 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
