Scottish Budget: For vital council services, the SNP are worse than Margaret Thatcher – Brian Wilson

Cuts announced by the SNP in the Scottish Budget will have ‘devastating consequences’

Whoever wrote the preamble to Shona Robison’s Budget statement was in overflow gush mode. “Our values of equality, opportunity and community”… “our guiding lights in difficult times”… “our social contract with the people of Scotland.”

Really? Anyone who knew nothing about the Scottish Government’s record might have been moved to empathy. Then, for a closer guide to reality, cut to the considered response to Ms Robison’s announcements from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.

“The Scottish Government has delivered a major blow to communities and has put councils at financial risk with a cash cut to local government,” Cosla’s statement declared. “It will mean cuts in every community in Scotland and job losses across Scottish local government.”

Humza Yousaf and Deputy First Minister Shona Robison are presiding over a government that's tougher on local government than Margaret Thatcher ever was (Picture: Jane Barlow/PA)

If Scotland is not the sum of its communities, then with whom does Ms Robison have this mythical “contract”? When council leaders of all parties and none unite to warn against “service cuts, job losses and an inevitable shift to providing statutory services only”, who will be the losers other than “the people of Scotland”?

Urgent, humane areas of spending

Given the track record, I have no reason to disbelieve Cosla or indeed its SNP leadership. Forget the drivel about guiding lights and social contracts (not to mention the Verity House Agreement between councils and the government). Once again, the SNP has put the boot into Scottish local authorities as a matter of political choice.

There has been plenty of reaction to Ms Robinson’s budget, almost none of it favourable. Higher taxes will affect many households which are far from prosperous. Huge cuts in urgent, humane areas of spending, such as social housing and mental health, are bewildering in the priorities they reflect.

Customary deflection of blame onto “Westminster” for not sending ever more money has worn thin except among the most committed disciples. Most of Scotland realises that decisions in Edinburgh are now damaging, rather than protecting, public services that were once taken for granted. That is the opposite of what devolution was supposed to be about.

Even on its own, the Cosla response reflects reasons why Ms Robison’s plea of virtuous intent should be taken with a large pinch of salt. The disdain for local democracy points to the philosophic flaw at the core of nationalist government – the steady accretion of powers and resources to the centre.

This is not a one-off attack on council finances driven by exceptional, immediate circumstances. Rather, it is the latest instalment in a sustained approach to marginalising Scottish local government and the services it provides, to be replaced by the long arm of Edinburgh control. Challenge is not welcome.

SNP blame game

For all the rhetoric about the wicked Tories, the reality is that Scottish local government is now capable of doing much, much less for its communities than was possible in the darkest days of Thatcherism. You need to have lived through both periods in order to understand the truth of that statement but I challenge anyone to dispute it.

In those days, Scottish local government had enough powers and resources to be a bulwark against policies from which people needed to be protected. Now, it has been impoverished to the extent that it has very limited ability to exercise these functions. And this budget will weaken it further.

Such realities have been masked by the kind of rhetoric practised by Ms Robison which did not feature in the 1980s but came to the same thing. A council that can’t empty your bins or keep libraries and swimming pools open does not depend on pseudo-progressive posturing. It needs decent funding and mutual respect between central and local government with a clear delineation of powers and responsibilities.

The SNP’s attitude to Scottish local government was epitomised by Humza Yousaf’s ex-cathedra announcement to his party’s conference that council tax would be frozen, depriving councils of the right to make local decisions and accept accountability. It was not difficult to foresee what would happen next.

A promise by Mr Yousaf that the freeze would be fully funded has not been met. Furthermore, councils are denied the revenue that would have come from their own decisions about the level of increases. Instead, central policy imposition for purely party-political purposes prevailed over any acknowledgement of local democracy.

Alongside the implications for local government services, the £200 million cut to social housing is appalling. How could Ms Robison, in the same speech, talk about values of “equality, opportunity and community” while at the same time cutting off the vital stepping stone for thousands – a home to live in?

‘Worst possible Budget’

The chief executive of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, Sally Thomas, described the budget as “an absolute hammer blow for tackling homelessness and poverty across Scotland” with “long-lasting consequences for the nearly 250,000 people stuck on a waiting list for a social home, as well as for existing tenants and the housing associations which support them”. Ms Thomas added: “More social homes quite simply mean fewer children growing up in poverty… It is the worst possible Budget at the worst possible time.”

After 16 years, the SNP can blame nobody but itself for decisions necessitated by the state of the Scottish Government’s finances. The director of Shelter Scotland, Alison Watson, said: “In the run-up to this Budget, ministers talked a lot about the ‘hard choices’ they would have to make. Now that they have made those choices, they cannot shy away from their devastating consequences”.

Oh yes, they can. That is exactly what they will try to do by blaming everyone but themselves for this week’s decisions, made in Edinburgh, that involved hard political choices and have ended up further disadvantaging the very people who depend most on public provision. A council tax freeze will not do much good for people who do not have a home. Will it, Mr Yousaf?