Councils need proper funding to make changes as Glasgow faces £20m Covid bill

Councils must get “proper resourcing” to make the required changes to local government in Scotland following Covid-19, a body representing local authorities has said.

New powers to raise and set taxes are among the demands set out in a blueprint launched by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA).

Councillor Graham Houston, COSLA’s vice-president, believes local government has proved its worth during the pandemic.

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He said: “Whether delivering food or medicine, providing shelter for the homeless, supporting volunteers or keeping many essential services running, local government has been the face of the response for many.”

He said the blueprint is a “menu for change that local government now requires”.

In Glasgow, the cost of the pandemic for the city council is estimated to be £134m.

Currently, the council is facing a deficit of £90m, although a government scheme to cover lost income, which has yet to be finalised, could reduce that figure to around £20m.

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Mr Houston said: “Without proper resourcing we will see reductions in spending and inevitable cuts to services, furthering the inequalities highlighted by the pandemic and putting at risk the very recovery we seek.”

The blueprint sets out six themes: strengthening local democracy, funding services and communities, wellbeing, education and children and young people, economy and environment and supporting vulnerable communities.

It states: “To put it simply – decisions should be made from the community up, not from the top down.”

COSLA has called for fair funding of local government, longer-term certainty in relation to budgets and the “removal of a cap on council tax so that this is a truly local tax”.

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It wants councils to “make spending decisions based on the priorities of communities”.

The blueprint also states a National Care Service “should not be merely accepted as the necessary means of reform without proper consideration of its scope, resourcing and, vitally, its implications for local decision making”.

It adds local government is “uniquely placed” to bring together services to bridge the attainment gap, giving all children the same opportunity to succeed.

COSLA also believes the recovery needs a “place-based” approach, which “reflects the fact that economic impacts will not be felt equally across society and the economy”.

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It has called for good quality homes for everyone in Scotland, preventing a return to homelessness and rough sleeping, and a social safety net “below which no one should fall”.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said “exceptional measures” have been taken to deal with the challenges of Covid-19.

“To date, the Scottish Government has committed £379 million of additional funding to local government for Covid-19 measures, on top of the local government finance settlement of £11.4 billion from this year’s budget.”

She said the government will continue to work with COSLA and councils.

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“Local authorities are autonomous bodies, and it is the responsibility of individual councils to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities,” she added.

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