SCOTLAND’S Labour councils continued to disagree yesterday about whether to implement the three per cent council tax increase which all 32 local authorities can make this year.
All homeowners in bands E to H across the country face increases due to national changes brought in by the Scottish Government, but six Labour councils have now maintained the basic rate tax freeze brought in by the SNP Government in 2007.
South Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, West Lothian, Aberdeen and West Dunbartonshire have all frozen their council tax rates but other Labour-led councils, such as Glasgow and Falkirk, have voted to implement the three per cent rise.
In Dundee, the ruling SNP group’s budget was passed with a 2.5 per cent rise, while the Labour group has called for the full three per cent.
City council leader Ken Guild said: “The Labour Party are all over the place with council tax proposals.”
Neighbouring Perth and Kinross Council voted for a two per cent rise proposed by the SNP group, with £10 million of capital expenditure agreed for the building of a replacement for Perth High School.
One Labour-led authority was thrown into complete disarray when the party resigned from being the administration of Clackmannanshire Council just minutes after electing a new leader.
Councillor Bobby McGill had quit the leadership on Tuesday over his group’s opposition to his aim of using compulsory redundancies to plug the funding gap In what might be the shortest political reign in local government history, Labour’s Graham Watt became leader of the council at yesterday’s meeting, but was unable to put through his budget proposals and the Labour group promptly resigned the administration about 10 minutes after he took over.
SNP councillor Gary Womersley was then elected to chair the meeting and become Provost, and a three per cent increase in council tax was duly approved. The budget will be decided at a future meeting when the SNP group is expected to take back the administration which they resigned last summer.
East Ayrshire Council voted for a three per cent increase. SNP leader Douglas Reid said: “We listened to what people had to say and our budget prioritises investment in people, communities and busi- nesses, helping folk to help themselves through education, regen- eration, developing locally-led action plans and economic growth.
“Against such a difficult background we will see pupils from five primary schools and two secondary schools moving into new state-of-the-art buildings in 2017/18, major development in Cumnock town centre being completed, and new industrial units for rent at Moorfield, and the completion of the new Ingram Business Centre at John Finnie Street in Kilmarnock. New housing is planned for Hurlford, New Cumnock and Darvel and, by 2021, East Ayrshire is likely to have more than 1000 newly-built council and social rented houses.”
Many councillors at Argyll and Bute Council were preoccupied with the police inquiry into alleged offences committed by one of their number.
The National revealed yesterday that Councillor Robert G McIntyre was under police investigation for twice voting to set the council tax rate when he was in four-figure arrears with his own council tax in 2013 and 2014.
McIntyre no longer has arrears and was able to take part in yesterday’s meeting which set a three per cent council tax increase.
Council leader Dick Walsh said: “We are protecting jobs and services in challenging times when our economy most needs them.
“We are making the very best use of the resources we have in challenging times, continuing to manage them prudently and effectively for the present day and for the future.”
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