Scottish government has no excuse to underfund local government

Dundee City Council’s Liberal Democrat Group has slammed the Scottish Government over new figures showing the Scottish Government underspent its budget by a record £2,087 million last year.

The biggest discrepancies between the 2021-22 budget and actual spending were in education, which had an £806m underspend, finance and economy (£536m) and net zero, energy and transport (£475m).

LibDem council group leader Councillor Fraser Macpherson said:

“Year after year right through its 16 years running the Scottish Government, the SNP has continually underfunded local government, leading to years of cuts to local services here in Dundee and across Scotland.” 

 “During this term of the Scottish Parliament, the SNP government has made clear it will give local councils only ‘flat cash settlements’ which means large cuts in budgets as no inflationary increase is given.   We’ve seen consumer price inflation reach over 10% recently, with construction inflation even higher than that.”

“No wonder Dundee City Council had around £12 million of cuts in funding this year – after years of budget cuts since the SNP took over Scottish Government back in 2007. The SNP has simply not prioritised local services and has presided over cut after cut after cut.”

Councillor Macpherson highlighted that the SNP council leader in Dundee has previously claimed at the council’s Policy and Resources Committee, that if the other parties want to argue for greater funding for local councils, they would have to say where it would make different cuts in the Scottish Government budget. However, it now turned out that the SNP was hugely underspending all along, the cuts were unnecessary had the SNP been a more competent government and the extra money to support local services was there after all.

His Liberal Democrat Group colleague Councillor Michael Crichton added :

“As a relatively new member of the council elected in May 2022, I have to say how shocked I have been at the level of SNP cuts to council budgets at the 2023 budget, with a large SNP council tax increase to boot. Hiked council tax charges for a lower level of services is a double whammy that no-one welcomed.

“The Liberal Democrat Group was very concerned at some of the SNP cuts which included proposals to end supported bus services in Dundee and axing the sheltered shoppers and Out and About bus services that will impact adversely on the city’s older people. 

“We were also concerned at cuts to roads and pavements budgets, cuts to community regeneration budgets and other cuts made by the SNP.”

Councillor Macpherson concluded:

“After yet another tough council budget again this year with millions cut from council services, it turns out none of these cuts were necessary if only the SNP was not so incompetent at running Scottish Government resulting in a £2 billion pound underspend.   Some of that underspend could now be used to increase funding to local government.”

“The SNP government should now be speaking immediately with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about revisiting the 2023-24 local government funding settlement and increasing funds to council to reverse the worst of the SNP’s cuts to services.”