SUNDAY DIVE: SNP LOCAL GOVERNMENT LIP-SERVICE AND HYPOCRISY
There is no disguising the Scottish Government's atrocious record on funding Scottish local governments. Freddy Krueger cuts and poor policy priorities are pushing councils to breaking point
My eyebrows were raised this week when Nicola Sturgeon reprimanded Scottish local authorities for failing to offer workers appropriate pay rises. Our First Minister put on her very best sorrowful tone as she explained to the Scottish Sun that,
“Just last week the Scottish Government gave £140m, er, additional funding, to local government, to help try to resolve, er, pay claims. Erm, and therefore, it’s really disappointing, in my view, er, that local authorities haven’t yet offered, er, a decent 5% pay increase there”1
There are a range of issues that I have with Ms Sturgeon’s remarks. These range from her claims about ‘additional funding’ to local government through to Ms Sturgeon’s claim to feel ‘really disappointed’.
Hypocrisy
There is something thoroughly hypocritical when our First Minister insists she has “put money on the table” and has provided “additional funding” to Scotland’s local governments.
Hypocrisy is a situation in which someone - let’s use the example of a politician - pretends to believe something they really do not believe. Or claim to believe something which is the opposite of what they say or do at other times. I put it to anyone familiar with the record of this Scottish Government that hypocrisy fits the bill.
While it is true that Nicola Sturgeon has given Scottish councils an “additional” funding injection of £140m, it hardly represents a game-changing moment. Not least since this £140m will be spread across 32 local authorities, thereby diminishing any tangible fiscal impact which may otherwise have been gained.
But that leads us to the real hypocrisy oozing from the First Minister’s remarks. It is a fact that her government has - far from doing all it can to help local government finances - has actually been imposing Freddy Krueger cuts.
National Records Scotland reports that if we exclude the emergency pandemic funding, this SNP government has imposed a 4.2% cut in real terms to Scottish local governments
“When Covid-19 funding is excluded, there has been a real terms underlying reduction of 4.2 per cent in local government funding since 2013/14”2
So it is a reality that the whole time Ms Sturgeon has been in the top job, she has been taking the axe to our local authorities fiscal stability. Quite far removed from her claims today where she waxes lyrical about providing “additional funding”.
Dr William Moyes, Chair of the Accounts Commission explains that the SNP have bene imposing levels of austerity on Scottish local governments far in excess of any need which may have existed in national budgets
“Excluding additional Covid-19 funding, councils have seen a real terms reduction in funding from the Scottish Government of 4.2 per cent since 2013/14. This is a larger reduction than the rest of the Scottish Government budget over the same period.”3
A larger reduction that the rest of the Scottish Government budget over the same period means cutting local government funding deeper and harder. As if that was not enough proof to give lie to Nicola Sturgeon’s claims about providing “additional funding”, Dr Moyes went further,
“With increasing amounts of money ring-fenced to meet Scottish Government priorities, it means councils must focus on specific policy areas, rather than the urgent, local priorities they have identified. And while councils have rightly shifted their focus to address the immediate impacts of Covid-19, plans to transform services have slowed.
The absence of a multi-year funding settlement, alongside the ongoing impacts of Covid-19, makes it challenging for councils to plan and budget effectively for the medium and longer term[…]
The pressures on councils that existed before March 2020 continue, yet now with greater intensity. As we reported in our 2021 Local government overview inequalities have been exacerbated and deepened by Covid-19. At the same time, the financial and service demands and stresses on councils have also increased.”4
What he is saying, in plain English is that the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon have been imposing ever more conditionality on the funding our local governments are receiving from Holyrood. If ever more local authority budgets are ring-fenced funds - which can only be spent in ways Ms Sturgeon tells you to - it hollows out local government.
They control an ever diminishing portion of their already reducing budget, thus local services crumble and worker pay rises can’t go forward. And remember, Sturgeon has imposed 4.2% real terms cut alongside her addiction to rising conditionality.
Any claims by Nicola Sturgeon to be providing “additional funding” to our local governments is a perfect example of hypocrisy from a politician. It’s a textbook example which ought to be included in the Cambridge online dictionary for the word alongside the other examples.
In hard numbers, we are talking about £937m5 of Krueger cuts on our local government’s by Nicola Sturgeon in just the last nine years. And in the latest budget, Kate Forbes - SNP Finance Secretary - has imposed yet another round of real terms cuts. So, realistically, that £937m figure is now out of date, the situation is even worse.
There is a price to this sort of fiscal assault on local authorities, one of which is being unable to offer their own workers proper pay rises. They simply do not have the money, and Nicola Sturgeon is to blame.
Lip-service
When our First Minister claims to feel it’s all “really disappointing” in her view that local authorities “haven’t yet offered” a “decent 5% pay increase”, this is beyond the standard hypocrisy. There is a surreptitious attempt to claim solidarity with the council workers calls for a pay rise decent enough to head off the worst of the cost of living crisis. But these are the very workers whose struggle for a decent pay rise she has done everything she can undermine.
To say that you agree with something but do nothing to support it, or even do the opposite, this is cheap, hollow lip-service.
At the same time as Ms Sturgeon is feigning feelings of solidarity with council workers, her finance secretary Kate Forbes has announce a new spending review. This one reveals SNP plans to slash local government budgets by 7%6 in real terms over the next five years.
Be under no illusions, it is mere lip-service from the First Minister when she claims to support “decent” local government pay rises. Her cuts throughout her whole time in power has worked to render such hopes by workers impossible.
Any suggestions of accepting a need for “additional” support for local authorities is rendered laughable when she has and continues to impose the most brutal austerity on our local governments.
Choices
Be under no false impressions, all of this is a question of priorities for the SNP government. They have the money, they could choose to properly fund our local governments but are choosing instead to lie to you, pretending that they are doing so.
Looking at the Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC) we know this is all a matter of priorities and choices for Nicola Sturgeon. Since Westminster has devolved a whole host of yet more powers to Holyrood, this time concerning social security, we know that Ms Sturgeon’s government has chosen to make various changes. She has decided to - of course - make Scotland’s benefits system more generous than England’s. The SFC reports that since the SNP decided on replacing UK benefits with more generous Scottish ones, this has opened up a substantial overspend.
Nicola Sturgeon thinks it is fine to spend £714m7 more on social security than is covered by the block grant, and pay for this largesse by decimating local government finances.
Let us also not forget the block grant from Westminster this year, and for the next three years, is worth a record £41 billion. Thus, we Scots are getting £126 per person for every £100 per person of equivalent UK government spending in England.
It is unambiguously clear, Nicola Sturgeon clearly has money available to spend on things which she considers a priority, such as ensuring social security is more generous compared to England. Or ensuring £20m is on hand to spend on another independence referendum a clear majority of Scots do not think ought to happen next year8. She even has £1m to splash on 22 civil servants to write up her pro-independence publication series9 - which my own Quickfire series exposes as complete guff.
Perhaps our First Minister can explain why our local authorities need to endure a further 7% knifing of their budgets by central government in Edinburgh, but that £20m on the pretendyref next year simply must be spent. Equally, if the First Minister has the money for £714m largesse over and above the block grant adjustment on social security, perhaps she can explain why upwards of £1bn of cuts to local authority budgets inside of a decade just had to happen.
You have the power
Our councils face angry workers demanding fair pay rises amid the worst inflationary crisis in my lifetime, and the SNP have ensured they face this crisis utterly cash-strapped. Our councillors managed to keep things from collapsing through the pandemic, but the new inflationary crisis amid skyrocketing energy bills and mass strike action could stretch them to breaking point. Scotland desperately needs robust and sustainable funding for local government. The best way to ensure this reform process can happen, is to evict every single SNP politician from office at all levels across Scotland, post-haste.
Scottish Sun, (2022, 17, August), ‘Nicola Sturgeon: Councils should make ‘decent’ 5% pay offer to avert Edinburgh strikes’, Interview, click here for link
Audit Scotland (2022, March), ‘Local government in Scotland. Financial overview 2020/21’, Accounts Commission, page 5, https://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/uploads/docs/report/2022/nr_220310_local_government_finance.pdf
Audit Scotland (2022, March), ‘Local government in Scotland. Financial overview 2020/21’, Accounts Commission, page 3, https://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/uploads/docs/report/2022/nr_220310_local_government_finance.pdf
Audit Scotland (2022, March), ‘Local government in Scotland. Financial overview 2020/21’, Accounts Commission, page 3 https://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/uploads/docs/report/2022/nr_220310_local_government_finance.pdf
Bol, David (2021, 14 March), ‘SNP told to 're-set' councils' relationship after £937m cuts revealed’, The Herald, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19158278.snp-told-re-set-councils-relationship-937m-cuts-revealed/
Glackin, Michael (2022, 21, August), ‘Cash-strapped councils left in the lurch by Sturgeon’, The Times, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cash-strapped-councils-left-in-the-lurch-by-sturgeon-ld8ghs62z
Scottish Fiscal Commission (2022, May), ‘Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts’, page 17, https://www.fiscalcommission.scot/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Scotlands-Economic-and-Fiscal-Forecasts-May-2022.pdf
Michael Blackley, Scottish Daily Mail Political Editor, ‘Sturgeon rocked by new poll blow’ click here for link
Michael Blackley, Scottish Daily Mail Political Editor, ‘How taxpayers foot £1m bill for SNP’s indyref bureaucrats’ click here for link
I see now how bin men in England got a £1980 wage rise while bin men in Scotland were offered £500.00,think she needs to think again with her 5% offer