Bringing Power Closer to People

Holyrood has become out of touch with the communities it is meant to serve. After years of SNP centralisation, too many decisions about local services are made by politicians in Edinburgh instead of the people they affect.

Council funding has been squeezed and local services have got worse, while the SNP forces taxpayers to pay more and more.

Our plan brings power back to local people and gives councils the freedom to deliver the services their communities need.

To stop the Holyrood power grab and return power to local communities we would:

Simplify the council funding formula. As things stand, there are nearly 150 different factors that influence each council’s final budget settlement. This cluttered landscape makes it difficult for councils to challenge Scottish Government calculations and can leave them short-changed. We would drastically reduce the number of factors that determine each local council’s budget. 

Give rural councils the funding they need to cover their increased costs. The current formula that allocates council funding includes too many factors that are unfair to mainland rural councils. We would address this imbalance and ensure that rural local authorities are properly compensated for the higher cost of delivering local services in rural, remote or Highland areas.

Ensure urban councils are properly funded for the pressures they are facing due to factors like population growth. Certain urban areas in Scotland are currently experiencing significant population growth but the data used by the Scottish Government to provide funding for these areas can be out of date and does not adequately capture recent population growth. Therefore, we would ensure that urban councils are given appropriate funding if they are experiencing high population growth so that they can deliver the services local residents need.

Provide councils with financial certainty by guaranteeing them a portion of the Scottish Government’s budget. The SNP have eroded the money local government receives from central government since coming to power. We would introduce a Fair Funding for Councils formula, whereby they are guaranteed a fixed proportion of the Scottish Government’s budget every year, similar to the Barnett formula. We would set this proportion at a higher rate than local government currently receives.

Introduce a Local Power Bill that gives councils funding on a multi-year basis. All too often councils are having to make long-term financial decisions while being left in the dark about their future budgets. Our Local Power Bill would place a duty on Scottish Ministers to provide as much information as they can to local councils on the money they can expect from central government on a multi-year basis.

End the ringfencing of council budgets with a new Budgetary Freedom Guarantee. This guarantee would increase the amount of money councils have available to spend at their own discretion, rather than on what the SNP Government dictates. It would be protected in law through our Local Power Bill and would mandate that ministers must give councils a minimum proportion of their budget to spend on their own local priorities. 

Stop SNP ministers from overturning local planning decisions. Local planning decisions should be final. It is unacceptable that Scottish Ministers have overturned hundreds of these decisions in recent years. We would put an end to this situation and ban politicians in Holyrood from overturning local decisions.

Encourage enterprise by allowing local authorities to retain business rates revenue. Currently, non-domestic rates revenue is entirely allocated by the Scottish Government. This provides local authorities with little incentive to attract businesses to the local area. We would change this so that local authorities are allowed to retain 25% of non-domestic rates revenue.

Give councils more freedom to lower business rates. Currently, local councils do have the freedom to reduce business rates, but in reality, this power is scarcely used because councils are not appropriately compensated. We would introduce a system whereby councils are provided with an incentive to lower business rates by giving them more financial certainty through centrally allocated funds.

Oppose the creation of more politicians or elected posts. The last thing Scotland needs is more politicians. The Scottish Conservatives will resist any attempts to introduce new politicians, whether they be through expanding the number of councillors or the creation of new elected roles that would require extra taxpayer funding to be established.

Deliver savings for taxpayers by removing barriers to shared services. Councils could save substantial sums of money on the administrative costs of delivering services by sharing the costs with other local authorities. However, regulatory and legal barriers are currently preventing councils from working together to save money. We would remove these barriers to allow these savings to be realised. 

Encourage councils to end the culture of public-sector fat cats. Millions of pounds of public money is spent on senior council officers raking in six figure salaries, while local services are being cut. We would give councils up-front cash to establish joint leadership teams with other local authorities, so the overall spend on senior council officers can be reduced in the long-term.

Conduct a review of all council quangos and shut down those not delivering value for money. There are more than 100 council quangos, known as ALEOs, operating in Scotland. We would conduct the first ever nationwide review of ALEOs to determine if these bodies are really delivering value for money for the public. Any ALEOs found to be wasting taxpayer money would stop receiving funding from central government.

Introduce league tables for councils’ performance on collecting bins and filling in potholes. The public deserve to know how well the council they pay for is performing on key local services. Filling in potholes and waste collection are two of the most important services that local authorities are required to carry out, so we would publish league tables to shine a light on local authority performance and allow lessons to be learnt from the best performers.

Protect elected councillors’ right to make decisions by stopping the abuse of the complaints system. Councillors are elected to represent the views of their constituents, and they should be able to do that without fear of repercussion from unelected officials. The Scottish Conservatives would amend the Councillors’ Code of Conduct to prevent the abuse of the complaints system and make it clear that council officers cannot make complaints against councillors just for challenging policy decisions.