Highlands on course for inflation-busting council tax rise?

There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth across the Highlands next month, when the Highland Council sets the council tax increase from April.

Judging by the planned increases of other local authorities, such as Edinburgh and East Lothian (eight per cent and 10 per cent respectively) council tax payers in the north face rocketing bills for the next financial year.

Is there an alternative? Council tax is the staple diet of local government finance in Scotland. It directly affects the quality and availability of essential public services, such as education, waste collection and roads maintenance.

Following a period of freezing of council tax, the Highland Council raised it by three per cent in 2022 and four per cent in 2023. Where will it land next month? Well, the council has significant funding gaps and I would not be surprised if council tax goes up by as much as seven per cent in April.

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Finance chiefs will have to weigh up budget deficits and the cumulative effect of infrastructure investment and factor in inflation and the cost of living. That, however, will afford little comfort to householders, who are already feeling the financial squeeze, with energy costs going up this month.

Council tax is not short of critics. The SNP pledged to abolish it in 2007 and had originally planned to replace it with a scheme of local income tax, but little came of that proposal.

Finance Secretary Shona Robison is to seek views on the reform of council tax. The Scottish Government have said they will work with local government umbrella organisation COSLA and commission expert advice.

Robison pledged to have widespread consultation in the form of town hall events across Scotland to hear the views of ordinary Scots.

Personally, I agree with campaigners such as Lewis Ryder-Jones from Oxfam, who said: “Council tax is enormously unfair and absurdly outdated – people’s homes were last valued over 30 years ago, before the Scottish Parliament even existed”.

However, knocking down the straw man called council tax is easy - providing a modern, equitable and fair alternative source of funding for local government is Byzantine in its complexity. Is it too much to hope for that our children have decent schools to attend and our roads are pothole free, without paying through the nose?

Far be it from me to intrude into family grief, but what on earth is going on inside the SNP? First, there are plans afoot to deselect five sitting SNP women MSPs, including local list member Emma Roddick, and then I read that local veteran constituency member Fergus Ewing faces the chop.

Fergus and I could not be described as bosom buddies – we have crossed swords as General Election opponents locally in 1992 and 1997, then as Scottish Parliament candidates in 2011 and 2016 – but I recognise his tenacity and determination in fighting for local issues, such as the dualling of the A9.

Clearly, Fergus has upset some of the big wigs in the SNP hierarchy – will revenge be afoot?

If Fergus is denied the chance to stand as an SNP candidate in the Scottish elections next year, would he stand as an Independent? Would he join Alba or, perish the thought, Reform?

Or could we set up a Men’s Shed for retired politicians?

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