MSPs demand budget answers in cash query
MSPs are demanding to know if Scottish Government ministers took account of the £150 million cost to councils of increasing public sector pay when determining the overall local government budget.
Finance Secretary Derek Mackay set aside j ust under £10.4 billion for local authorities in his draft Budget for 2018-19 – with Holyrood’s Local Government and Communities Committee stating this is a real terms cut of £58m from the current year.
The draft Budget also contained plans to give public sector workers earning under £30,000 a year a 3 per cent pay rise.
While MSPs on the committee said local government pay was a matter for local authorities to decide, they said the Scottish Government’s public sector pay policy “creates an expectation as to what local government workers might receive”.
Councils would have to find around £150m to implement this and the committee said it wanted “information from the Scottish Government about how its public sector pay policy aspirations are taken into account in its decision on the local government revenue budget”.
The local government body Cosla has already made clear that “it did not consider that the local government settlement included funding for any local government pay award”.
The organisation added that councils have a “significant proportion” of workers earning less than £30,000 a year, stating that funding a 3 per cent rise for them would be a “significant pressure”.
In its report on the Budget, the committee also demanded to know why councils have not been given an indication of how much cash they will receive in coming years.
The MSPs stated: “We... ask the Scottish Government to explain why it has not published a multi-year budget this year, and recommend that the Scottish Government provides multi-year indicative revenue funding for local government over the remainder of the Parliamentary session.”
Local Government and Communities Committee convener Bob Doris said: “During our evidence sessions, we heard of the challenges faced by local authorities as they seek to balance their books while tackling increasing demands for their services.
“We welcome the steps taken by the Scottish Government to improve transparency in this Budget and our report makes recommendations aimed at moving the discussion on from whether funding is being provided to focus on what that funding aims to deliver for local communities right across Scotland.
“Improving transparency further will help us do that.”