Yesterday Dundee City Council held
its budget meeting and the SNP administration’s proposals for cutting £23 million
were passed by 15 votes to 2, with the Labour Group abstaining.
During the debate I mentioned
that Scottish councils have had to contend with the biggest attack on their budgets
in decades and that the SNP Scottish Government had chosen to underfund local government. The UK Government settlement to the Scottish Government
increased by 1.7% in cash terms from last year but the SNP chose to reduce Dundee
City Council’s grant funding by 3.8%. If the council had received a cash
increase equivalent to the overall cash increase in the Scottish Government’s budget,
rather than an £11.3 million cut in grant funding Dundee would instead have received
a £5 million increase in its grant.
The amendment I supported, if it
had been carried, would have stopped the large increase in car parking charges
and reduced slightly the cut to the road maintenance and street lighting budget.
The council tax has been frozen
for another year but with Scottish Labour wanting to increase the rate of income
tax higher than the rate levied elsewhere in the UK and the SNP soon to set out
details of its plans to reform the council tax then I think this time next year
Dundee tax payers will be hit with a double whammy of tax increases.
