Bol Disgusting city streets will sweep the country

NOTHING quite grabs your attention like a mountain of rubbish on every street corner of Scotland’s capital city.

Edinburgh, finally the busiest it has been since the Covid horror show hit, has never looked worse.

Locals in the city are used to seeing the occasional Christmas tree clinging to the streets months after the decorations have been taken down – but the current state of the city is embarrassing. And it absolutely honks.

Refuse workers are striking over what they see as an inadequate 5 per cent pay offer as inflation soars to more than double that rate.

But public sector workers across different crucial parts of local government are also set to walk out in communities across the country – with funding for wages unable to match soaring inflation rates.

Union bosses have stressed that the majority of members asking for a better pay deal earn £25,000 or less a year.

The cost-of-living crisis will have dire and deadly consequences without Government intervention – but a historical lack of faith between all tiers of government is putting any way forward at risk.

But before the latest round of negotiations, the public sector pay bill in Scotland totalled more than £21 billion per year.

The SNP were engulfed in blame game mode earlier this week.

Focusing on Edinburgh where the party lost grip of power in May’s local elections, local politicians were quick to point the finger at the new Labour minority administration.

But an obvious flaw in this strategy emerged in that it’s not just confined to the capital. It is a national problem that will sweep across Scotland in the coming weeks and months, including in several authorities run by Nicola Sturgeon’s party.

Cosla, the umbrella organisation representing Scottish councils, has not covered itself in glory.

The body was handed £140 million by SNP ministers to go towards pay uplift for workers, but did not put the money on the table until last week – scunnered by its lack of real-terms cash handed over by the Scottish Government in recent years.

Despite many

Perhaps it’s time for SNP ministers to start treating local government funding with the same seriousness as cash for the NHS

promises made to reform how local government is funded, nothing has changed. And in the meantime, councils are having their core funding cut in real terms every year, with inflation also ebbing away into those vital pots of money.

COUNCIL CASH CUTS

IN real terms, local councils’ core settlement from the Scottish Government, where the majority of the cash comes from, has been reduced by 15.2% since 2013/14. SNP ministers have pointed to less funding in real terms from the UK Government which has had a knock-on impact – but it’s also about funding priorities. The proportion of the Scottish Government’s budget being allocated to local councils has toppled from 34% in 2013/14 to 28% in 2022/23.

And things are set to get even worse for councils – already cut to the bone – with core budgets expected to be cut by a further 7% in real terms by 2027.

With these core budgets being stretched to their limit – partly due to Scottish Governmentfunded commitments such as free childcare expansion – it’s easy to see why the £140m specifically handed over by ministers for pay increases was not immediately laid out on the negotiating table.

The Scottish Government has been frank that it cannot match what is being asked for in terms of public sector pay. John Swinney has essentially admitted there is not enough money to do so.

Last week, Labour proposed that local authority funding be set aside as a proportion of the total Scottish Government budget – a proposal shamelessly stolen from the Tories.

SOCIAL PRESSURES

PERHAPS it’s time for SNP ministers to start treating local government funding with the same seriousness as cash for the NHS – particularly given the social care pressures local authorities are faced with alongside other crucial services such as education, homelessness and addiction support.

Speaking at an Edinburgh Festival Fringe show last week as rubbish piled up outside the venue, the First Minister was confronted by an NHS worker who pointed to strike action being balloted in October over pay.

Ms Sturgeon insisted she will “do everything I can to avoid that happening”.

She said she “would love to be able to offer pay rises that were in line with inflation”, but added “I just can’t do that within our budget”.

These pay disputes are a symptom of the cost-of-living crisis – an emergency that politicians at every level must surely appreciate will need more cash to fix.