 Siwr roedd cwm yn diwethaf. Gysylltu i fy ngyf Causebwysig ond. Beiddiw sounds 1.0794 yn namesu Derek Mackay, gyda Ffiannau Llywodraeth Llywodraeth. Gwětland Rydyddon, 28 dddiweddig. Mae ydw i ymddoch i gweithio i'r dweill y cwestiwyr ar y maes gweithio i gy bethau Cynllud Cymru. Yn gyfryd Deyrdi Mackay i gweithio i hefyd, mae'r ddrwng â'r ddiweddeg sefydlu, Ffiannau Llywodraeth. Ni, dweud, yn gweithio gwahodau ffuntiynau gweithio gyda'r llyfr gwybodau ar gyfer yr ymgyrch gyda'r informant ei gweithio bethau erioedd mewn rheud yn cychydig, ac mae ei ddych chi'n ymwybodaeth i'i siarad ar y ffuntiynau llefydol agedigol ffordd yma, ac mae haith eich jimddion mae'r Ymgyrch gyda'r llyfr yma arall. Mae ymgyrch gyda'r 19 ans yma yn y ddiweddol iawn o ffoswn yr llyfr gwybodau ar gyfer y modd The funding package in 2018-19 continues to focus on the delivery of our joint priorities to deliver sustainable economic growth together with protecting front-line services and the most vulnerable in our society, and in providing a real-terms increase in resource funding to local authorities, it will ensure that local authorities have the funding available to follow the lead of the Scottish Government and lift the 1 per cent pay cap. In 2018-19, the Scottish Government will provide councils with with a total funding package worth £10.7 billion. That includes revenue funding of over £9.8 billion and support for capital expenditure of over £876 million. Today's order seeks Parliament's approval for the distribution and payment of £9.5 billion out of a revenue total of £9.8 billion and the remainder will be paid out as specific grant funding or other funding that will be distributed later as agreed with local government. Included in these figures is £159.5 million, which I announced on 31 January during the debate on stage 1 of the 18-19 budget bill. The remaining £10.5 billion that I announced will be paid as a specific revenue grant in support of internal ferries for the Northern Isles. If I had announced £10 billion for ferries for the Northern Isles, that might have been a wholly different matter. Of this extra £159.5 million, £125 million was allocated as an amendment to the budget bill at stage 2 and is included in the 18-19 revenue support grant figures in the order that is set out at stage 1 debate. The remaining £34.5 million is included as a redetermination of that revenue support grant figures, which is in today's order. I hope that you have all of that. The overall funding package for 18-19 includes an additional £159.5 million to protect spending on day-to-day services, as I announced on 31 January as part of stage 1 of the budget bill. £10.5 million for Orkney and Shetland Island councils to support internal ferries for the Northern Isles and £66 million to support additional investment social care in recognition of a range of pressures that local authorities are facing, and £52.2 million of revenue and £150 million of capital funding to deliver on our ambitious programme for the expansion of early years education and childcare. I thank the cabinet secretary for taking the intervention. The cabinet secretary talks about a package that is intended to protect council funding and services. Can he explain why, in his own council area of Renfrew, he is looking at £24 million of cuts over the next three years and 200 job losses that were outlined in yesterday's article on the times? As many councils, such as all councils, will be making priorities and decisions at the same time that they are investing more in roads and the environment that they are expanding services, as are many other councils. It is choices for local authorities. If you take Gremshire Council, for example, it is committed to no compulsory redundancies. As an example of councils making choices, my argument back would be that local authorities are well resourced as a consequence of the budget, and the above inflation uplift was good news for local government across the land. There is a range of elements of the package that I have begun to discuss, such as financial support of £24 million to cover the full-year cost of the teachers pay award for £1718, £120 million for the pupil equity funding, spent at the discretion of headteachers to raise attainment and close the attainment gap, £88 million to maintain the pupil teacher ratio nationally at 2016 levels and, of course, within health and social care, the £355 million transfer from the NHS to integration authorities in support of health and social care, which has been baseline. Of course, if all local authorities, and it looks as if they all look set to increase council tax by up to 3 per cent, that is worth an additional £77 million to Scotland's local authorities. Thirty local authorities have set their council tax levels with the remainders to do so this week. That represents a real-terms increase for local government. There remains a further £47.6 million of revenue funding that will be distributed once the necessary information becomes available and will be included for approval in the 2019 order. The amounts involved, as agreed with local government, are as follows. That is £37.6 million in respect of the teachers induction scheme and £10 million, which is the balance of the total sum available to ensure the impact of the bedroom tax can be fully mitigated. In addition to the revenue funding contained within today's order, the specific revenue funding that is paid directly by the relevant policy under separate legislation amounting to £273.7 million, including the pupil equity funding, £86.5 million for criminal justice social work, £52.2 million for early years expansion, the additional support for the Northern Isles ferries and £4.4 million for Gaelic funding. At the 2018 order, there also seeks approval for changes to funding allocations for 1718 of £148.6 million, which has been added to fund a number of agreed spending commitments. Those include £42.3 million for the council tax reduction scheme, £37.5 million to support the teacher induction scheme and £22.5 million for temporary accommodation. There is certainly a strong increase for capital funding as well, primarily supporting the Government's efforts around early learning and childcare and further investments that we have previously debated around our ambitious housing targets. I would argue that our business rates package is amongst the most generous in the UK and our specific measures to support growth. The business community has warmly welcomed our decision to cap the uplift at CPI rather than RPI. In summary, the total funding from the Scottish Government to local government next year amounts to £10.7 billion. Those funding proposals continue to deliver a fair financial settlement for our partners in local government, which will be strengthened by continued joint working to improve outcomes for local people by improving educational attainment and through health and social care integration. I now move that the Parliament approves the local government finance Scotland order for 2018. Mr Stewart, six minutes please. We in the Scottish Conservatives have been clear that we do not believe the Scottish Government's funding settlement for our local councils is fair. It falls well short of the revenue increase of £540 million that COSLA has said that local authorities are required to maintain current levels. This poor settlement is systematic of the SNP Government's approach to local democracy. Unlike us in the Scottish Conservatives, who believe that local authorities can be the real engines of local growth, the Scottish Government seems to treat councils with contempt. I have spent 18 years as a councillor, and I am well aware of what Governments have done to local government in that timescale. Over the tenure of the Government, they have certainly done that. I would like to make some progress, while we maintain that this is exactly and disappointing in a difficult settlement, and we acknowledge that we shall be voting today with the Scottish Government's motion in order to ensure that our local councils receive their funding. It is clear from the carefully choreographed PR stunt that we saw negotiating between the SNP and the Greens earlier this year that they reversed the draft budget's proposal and the real-term cut to local government budgets, but that has gone by no means far enough. It was very much the case that the Scottish Government could only give the sufficient financial professionals to ensure that councils receive their funding. The financial overview of local government in the views of Audit Scotland highlighted that there are still challenges facing local government as we move forward. Rather worryingly, the report revealed that Scottish councils are on average spending 10 per cent of their revenue budget servicing borrowing. The report suggests that some councils could run out of funds completely in the next two to three years. Those problems are very much at the fault of the Scottish Government. 7.6 per cent of real-term cuts in local authorities since 2010-11. Moreover, the pressures that the SNP has put on local authorities' budgets and forced many councils across Scotland to use fees and charges to fund vital services is totally unacceptable. It is not only the level of funding that the Scottish Government has gone badly wrong this year. We have seen plain sight of incompetence when it emerged that provisional local government settlement, including ring-fence funds for criminal justice, had been allocated in two areas of the budget. Local authorities also are facing significant shortfalls when it comes into double counting, meaning that they are facing bigger challenges. Councils have planned their budgets based on the figures that were set by the Scottish Government's draft budget, and those problems have only created even more difficulties for them. Can I make sure that the record is absolutely accurate here? There is absolutely no double counting. The consultation phase that comes after the circular allows local authorities to engage and come back to local government if there is a different choice in methodology or other matters. That is exactly what happened—a different way to allocate the resource. I know that Alexander Stewart would first of all welcome the fact that the Scottish Government consults with local government on distribution and is willing to respond and will not continue what would be totally inaccurate to suggest that there was double counting when there was not. Alexander Stewart says that it is a different way to allocate the resources at all, but it is not just the incompetence that we have seen. We have also seen the Scottish Government in recent months deal with the settlement in so many different ways. There has been a slight of hand when it has come to the percentage that the pay for council workers has been dealt with. A 3 per cent pay rise was talked about and agreed, and the funding core government staff technically does not cover the 240,000 council workers. Scottish ministers have had to admit that it creates an expectation that staff and council staff would expect a 3 per cent rise, but that is not necessarily going to be the case, because they have warned that the main challenge for local government finances that they see going forward is Scotland's government's public sector pay policy itself—the cost itself. We have already heard that if every council put up its rate that would bring in £77 million, I would like to make progress. The cost increase to staff for a 3 per cent would mean that it would be £210 million—nearly three times the amount, dear Presiding Officer. The funding that would be required is not there. It highlights a wider problem within local government financing in Scotland, and that is the lack of transparency by the Scottish Government. The local government finance order today is voting on, and we have said that we will approve that, but we are uncomfortable about doing that, because it means that Parliament cannot properly debate local government financing for 2018-19. In the full knowledge and impact that will happen, today is a purely procedural issue that we are going through. There are therefore opportunities for us to deal with the financial circular when it comes forward, but we are not going to get that until later on this year and after this debate. As far as I am concerned, in conclusion, the Scottish Conservatives will be voting for this motion today, but we do not believe that it is the right way to go forward, and we do not believe that it is the proper way to manage the businesses of Scotland's finances. Hardworking Scots up and down the country are being asked by the SNP Government to pay more than tax while their local services are being cut. The Scottish Government is tackling and ensuring that it is giving and taking with one hand and taking with the other. That is a double whammy to people across this country. The Scottish Government urgently needs to rethink its approach to local government finances and make progress on funding allocations to councils, more transparency, so that we get the proper parliamentary scrutiny that we deserve. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this afternoon's debate and to oppose the local government finance order that has been brought forward by Derek Mackay. I appreciate Mr Kelly giving me an intervention after only 14 seconds in. It was really just to make the point that I am sure that James Kelly knows that to oppose the order is to oppose the money that is actually going to local government. The Tories in this regard have at least reflected that we will have a difference of opinion on the sums, but this is a technical order to release the monies that have been allocated. By all means, campaign for more if the Labour Party wishes, but if you were to be successful it would mean no money going to local government. James Kelly The cabinet secretary may make the point that this is a technical order and a technical debate, but we will not sign up to what in effect is an allocation of cuts to local councils. We hear time and time again speeches from the SNP benches about opposing austerity and standing up for progressive policies, but if you look at what is happening in local government, the figures are absolutely stark. Prior even to this year's budget, we had a cumulative effect of £1.5 billion of cuts. COSLA reckoned that £545 million was needed in order to fill the black hole in the SNP budget. I acknowledge that there was movement between stage 1 and stage 3, but it still left a stark hole of £386 million. That is reiterated by the points that were made in the Audit and Commission report in November last year, which gave some stark examples of how councils are struggling to fill the gaps after year on year of cuts. Yes, I certainly will. Mr Kelly is painting, as he points out, to be a stark picture. If things were so stark, why was it that Labour councils last year refused to raise the council tax when they had the ability to do so? James Kelly It was SNP MSPs who have pressed their buttons in this Parliament year after year, seven years in a row, allocating cuts budgets to local councils. Just look at the analysis in yesterday's times, which very helpfully went through council area by council area what is actually happening on the ground. If you take one example of jobs, Aberdeenshire, 370 jobs go on, East Renfrewshire 300, Renfrew, Mr Mackay's own area 200, Fife 190, North Ayrshire 50, the Scottish Borders 35, Angus the loss of 16 teaching posts and Orkney 14. That is just from the times analysis alone, and that totals just short of 1200 jobs lost. If those were being lost in an industry or a specific factory, the Scottish Government would quite rightly be setting up a task force as a matter of urgency, but instead we get the cabinet secretary coming along here today asking us to vote for an allocation that will cut budgets and cut jobs and cut services. He tells us in reasonable tones that it is a well-resourced budget. Again, just look at what is happening across the country yesterday in West Dunbartonshire. Voting for a budget that resulted in £2.5 million of cuts to services such as meals and wheels is of a real impact on local services and local communities. I would also contend that the cuts that we are seeing do not help the Government to achieve their policy objectives. The Government, understandably, will want to see improvements in educational performance. It will want to see the statistics improve for crucial skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, but it is difficult to see how that will happen if we are taking teaching posts and classroom assistant posts out of schools as sub-councils are having to do. I am sorry, I am nearly at the end. I have taken two interventions. It also does not join up with growing the economy if you are draining services from education. In some cases, councils have told me that they sometimes have to cut back on business planning and local economy units, which will undermine the ability of the council to contribute to local economic growth. That does not make sense in relation to the Government's overall policy priorities. In summing up, we want to stand in the sidelines and cheer on the cuts, such as the SNP and MSPs. We will stand up for local communities and will oppose that order at 5 o'clock tonight. Thank you very much, Mr Wightman. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. That is an important debate. It is not just a technical one, but in many ways it is a debate that we should not be having. I will explain why in a moment. That order, as the cabinet secretary says, delivers almost £9.5 billion in revenue support grant and non-domestic rates for councils across Scotland. That money will be used to deliver the wide range of vital public services from educating Scotland's young people to environmental health, social care, leisure, recreation and transport housing. Following Green's engagement with the budget process, the settlement represents the real terms of modest increase in revenue spending for local government across Scotland. That was a key demand in budget negotiations and I am pleased that it has been secured. That is therefore a settlement that we will be voting for at decision time. However, as I mentioned at the outset, that is not a settlement that we would like to be voting for. It is fundamentally wrong that so much of the revenue and capital budgets of local government is determined by the Scottish Parliament. In 2014, the COSLA's Commission on Strengthening Local Democracy published its final report in which it argued that the case for much stronger local democracy is founded on the simple premise that it is fundamentally better for decisions about those aspirations to be made by those who are most affected by them. That is an argument that I know that many members will recognise from the 2014 independence debate when largely the same argument was used to advance the case for Scottish independence. However, for more than 50 years, local democracy in Scotland has been eroded to the point now where Scotland is one of the least democratic countries in Europe with the weakest structure of local government and with the least fiscal freedom. Across most European countries, at least 50 per cent of the budgets that municipalities and communes raise is raised locally. That delivers a sense of accountability that is entirely missing in Scotland and where the politicians who make the decisions about raising and spending money are genuinely local. Politicians that they would meet on a daily basis in the street, in the shops, in the school playground. Scottish Greens want to see a fundamental shift in political power from Holyrood to local communities and, thus, this is the last budget that we will be willing to enter negotiations over unless there is a serious, credible and substantive process begun to increase fiscal autonomy of local authorities, reform local taxation, shift the balance of funding from the centre to the local and put in place the kind of fiscal framework that exists between the UK and Scotland in relation to devolved budgets. That is why, on 21 February, Patrick Harvie wrote to the First Minister to outline why we need local tax reform, as envisaged by the commissioner on local tax reform. That is why, last March, following the budget, we published a paper outlining what a fiscal framework for local government might look like. That is why I will soon put out for consultation a proposal for a member's bill to incorporate the European Charter on local self-government into Scots law. In particular, it is in a front to local democracy that the limited and regressive tax power that they have, the council tax, remains the most regressive tax in the United Kingdom, based on a tax base that was last assessed over a quarter of a century ago. It is wrong that council tax rate setting powers have been appropriated by the finance secretary in a form of Tory rate capping in order to cajole local government to bend to the will of central government and to punish councils if they do not meet the preferences of Scottish ministers. That is a process that would be unlawful across most of Europe and, in my view, unlawful under international law. I do not feel comfortable sitting in this Parliament and voting on how much money local government should receive, but we are where we are and we will be supporting the order at decision time. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to begin by commending Andy Wightman for the remarks that he has just made about local government finance. I believe that, just like this place, he should be able to raise the majority of the money that it spends, that local government should have the same power too. If he controls the purse strings, he can control his own destiny, and then we can have true local democracy rather than the control that we have by central government over local government. I agree with an awful lot of what Andy Wightman has just said. I think that we should be putting power back in the hands of local government. Taking back control for them, I think, is incredibly important, because if we are going to improve local accountability so that local electorates hold their local councillors to account for the decisions that they make, there is no point in central government dictating how much money they are going to get in the first place. I think that that should change, and I hope that we get a good debate over the next year that will encourage that kind of reform so that we can get true local government. I would like to commend my colleagues, Tavish Scott and Liam McArthur, for achieving even more than they thought for the ferries for the northern isles. I heard the finance secretary commit to £10 billion for new ferries for the northern isles. Those luxury ferries that are going to be providing a bed for every passenger with waiters on tap, I think, is a great innovation by the minister. Cabinet secretary, briefly. Deja Vu, if I put in £10 billion on the budget for the ferries, would even Willie Rennie vote for it? He's taken the word right in my mouth. It would still not be good enough, I'm afraid, because the SNP always falls short of what is required. I think that I would like to focus, however, on a serious element of this statement today, because, for the sixth year in a roll, we have the failure of the SNP government to match its commitment from its 2011 manifesto, the manifesto that said, re-elect Alex Salmond. It said in it, we will introduce a new funding floor to ensure that no local authority receives less than 85 per cent of the Scottish average in terms of revenue support. That will be funded by additional money for central government. The spice briefing, based on the draft budget, I admit, but having looked at the figures today, the percentages have not changed substantially. The Edinburgh figure is not 85 per cent, but 80.7 per cent, and Aberdeen is 81.5 per cent, well short of the funding floor that was promised. Now, instead of fixing the funding for local government, particularly in Aberdeen, who have suffered a shortfall of getting on to £20 million on average each year, for each of those six years, instead of providing more money for Aberdeen and now Edinburgh, they have just fixed the formula, because what they now say is that it includes council tax income, which miraculously takes the figure right up. Now, that was not the commitment back in 2011, it was very, you know, I have taken an intervention already. Mr Rennies in his last minute. So they are, there is a shortfall again, and the figures this year are £28 million shortfall for Edinburgh and £7.3 million shortfall for Aberdeen, based on the promise that was made in the 2011 manifesto. So yet again, failing to meet the commitment that they had made to meet that 85 per cent funding floor. So I hope that we will get some kind of revision of this to meet their commitments in future. The north-east has faced some considerable problems in recent years over oil and gas. The NHS has been underfunded by £16 million a year on average, and the infrastructure for that part of the world is poor too. So it needs to change. It needs to change to meet the commitment and it needs to change to meet a fair deal for Aberdeen and for Edinburgh. Thank you very much, Mr Rennie. I call John Mason to follow by Graham Simpson. Four minute speeches please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I'm always happy to speak on the budget and once again tell the Tories why they are wrong. Although the focus today is on local government finance, clearly we also need to look at the wider issues of how we raise revenue and how we spend it. I suspect that most people today will argue that local government should get more money rather than less, although of course the Conservative policy of cutting or freezing tax would mean that either local government or other sectors would have their funding cut. So firstly I think that we should acknowledge the Green Party pushing on this and agreeing with the Government to raise income tax a bit more and so fund our councils a bit better. But there is only so far you can go down that route without killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Labour have suggested much higher taxation but apparently without doing much research, exploring how it would work in practice or having their figures independently checked. It is interesting that a party that supported having the Scottish Fiscal Commission independent and doing the forecasts instead of the SNP government is not quite so keen on having its own forecasts properly verified. Assuming that we do not have much scope for raising the tax take much more at this stage, presumably the other parties wanting to give more to local authorities want to take that money off other sectors, such as the health service. Mr Wightman? I think that Mr Mason has taken an intervention. Surely the point is that it is not so much whether we should raise more tax to give to local government is a question of whether local government should have the fiscal levers to decide for itself how much revenue it wishes to raise in its local area. John Mason? I do agree with his argument on what he said in his speech today. I look forward to his bill coming, but I think that where we are today for 1819 and this is what Labour have failed on is that they could not introduce new taxes in time for this April. We find it difficult to get some of the other parties to admit this, but more money for local government means either fewer nurses, fewer doctors, fewer medicines, fewer students, fewer trains or one of those other options. The Tory suggestion of making savings through less wastage is just another way of making cuts and they have not told us what departments they think should be getting these cuts. Is it local government or is it somewhere else? Obviously, as a Glasgow MSP, I want as much funding as possible for our city. I consider that funding allocations must be based on need and not on arbitrary percentages, as Willie Rennie seems to suggest. I do accept that need can be hard to measure, but our allocations to local government must be based on need. The top four local authorities by funding in the provisional figures are the three island authorities, followed by our Gail and Bute, also with many islands. Having been heavily involved in the islands bill, I do think that that is appropriate based on the extra costs and challenges that islands face. The next three on the per capita basis are Inverclyde, Westin Bartonshire and Glasgow, and I think that most people would feel that that was appropriate based on the needs that those local authorities face. Compared to England, local councils are getting a good deal. This week is apprenticeship week, and yesterday I visited an organisation in my constituency that provides care for adults with learning disabilities and others with quite severe needs. It was good to hear that they put a huge emphasis on training, not just for princes but for all their staff. However, it was especially encouraging to hear too that they are able to pay their workers in Scotland £1 per hour more than they can do so in England. That is because local authorities here are willing and able to pay that a bit more, and that in turn is because local authorities in Scotland are better funded than their counterparts down south. Of course, we would all like more money for almost everything, but we have to live in the real world, and that means living within our means. Maybe in future years that means more taxation, maybe in future years other sectors will need less money, but I have to say that for 2018-19 I think that we have set a pretty reasonable and fair budget, and in particular a pretty reasonable and fair settlement for local government. Thank you. Last year I stood here and bemoaned a finance settlement that left councils making cuts, axing services and losing staff, and here we are again. £15 million, a lot of money. Remember that figure because I will return to it. Scottish Conservatives will vote for the order tonight because councils need the money, but, as Alexander Stewart has already said, our support should not be seen as acceptance that it's a fair settlement because it isn't. Local government has been squeezed year after year by the SNP. However, they try to dress it up or even hide the true picture, councils have been making cuts every year under Derek Mackay and John Swinney. Mr Mackay was once a promising young council leader who stood up for local government. Now he cuts a figure from a Dickens novel. First, you cut a figure from a Dickens novel, first he is Mr McCorber presenting a draft budget hoping something will turn up, which it surely does in the shape of Patrick Harvie, but at the same time he's Mr Scrooge swinging the axe on local government, a complex man indeed. Now I was a councillor for 10 years and every year the SNP have been in power we had to make decisions on what to cut. The council tax freeze was there, so at least that was something, but we held our nerve when that ended and continued it because that's what we had pledged to do. Keeping our promises on tax, what a novel concept. This year the current crop of councillors was set up to expect a massive cut in their budget, so when that cut was not quite as bad as they first feared some of the more naive among them were delighted. We've even had the rookie SNP council leader John Ross drooling that it was quotes the most progressive budget for South Lanarkshire council for many years and praising a better than expected settlement. Now Derek Mackay and his outrider Mr Harvie may be able to fool the likes of councillor Ross but his council has still had to make £15 million of cuts, there's that £15 million and is losing more than 100 full-time equivalent members of staff. On top of that, hard-pressed council taxpayers in South Lanarkshire can now look forward to a 3% increase in what they give the council to manage potholes. I can't wait, if that's progressive then you can keep it. South Lanarkshire is no different to any other council. What about Labour-run North Lanarkshire? Their challenge was slightly easier but they still had to make £2.6 million of cuts and lose more than 50 full-time equivalent staff and there's that familiar council tax increase. At least the council leader Jim Loog knew who to blame this time, noting the devastating impact that the continued level of austerity enacted by the Scottish Government's lack of support for local government. Will that just about sums it up? The Scottish people are starting to realise the consequences of the SNP's incompetence on the service delivery of local government. Derek Mackay and Patrick Harvie's annual charade may con SNP council leaders, but not everyone is as easily fooled. We can expect the same dance next year. Council staff throughout Scotland could be forgiven for expecting a 3% pay rise, although the bad news is that the Scottish Government, having created that expectation, won't pay for it. Fair funding, Presiding Officer? I don't think so. The Budget debate this year has been marked, as it has in previous years by contorted rhetoric and even more contorted mathematics, to try to claim largesse and generosity when it comes to the settlement for local government. Frankly, that's nothing short of a cruel irony, because, after 10 years of SNP Government, local government has seen 10 years of austerity passed on to it—£1.5 billion worth of cuts. That is an SNP choice. Since 1314, the Scottish Government sought a cut of 1.5 per cent to its revenue grant, and yet it passed on a cut of 4.5 per cent in revenue funding to local government. That is despite the fact that much of the SNP's largest public policy change proposals actually require the use of local government, whether it is the expansion of childcare or tackling the attainment gap. The reality is that, although the SNP increasingly adds to the job list of local government, it gives less and less to them in order to do it. I'll give way. James Dornan Outside of local government, the biggest funder, the receiver of funds, is the NHS. Could you tell me just how much you would have taken out of the NHS budget to fill that gap that you claim is there? The reality is that the SNP have failed to use the powers of this place year after year. That's where you fill the gap through progressive taxation. Mr Johnson is talking about filling gaps, Presiding Officer. Maybe he can tell us why Labour councils chose not to increase the council tax last year, which would have filled a few gaps, as he would put it. Just a wee minute. You stand up when I call you. I know you're desperate to reply. John Swinney Mr Johnson Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. The reality is that council tax is a regressive form of taxation. The SNP used to think that. Why don't they think that any more? The reality is that this is also a rather odd debate. I'd firstly like to echo some of the comments made by Andy Wightman. We have to make local government ffiscally responsible again, but we also need a transparent budget process, because while we might have debated the budget two weeks ago, we still don't have the clear and final detail, according to Spice. At the point that I entered the chamber, we still didn't have the local government financial circular. That is a disturbing lack of transparency. I urge the minister to reflect on that in future years, so that we have an improved, more transparent budget process, and indeed a more stable form of funding local government. Let me turn my comments to Edinburgh. I would like to thank Willie Rennie for raising the issue of Edinburgh. It is very generous for him to speak up for areas other than his own, but the reality is that this is a terrible deal for Edinburgh. This year we will see a £2.6 million real-terms cut, according to the latest figures that we have seen. Indeed that comes off the back of a budget central last year, which was described by the councillor in Edinburgh as the worst settlement since devolution. Edinburgh has much of what we need for it to be successful. We have a high number of tech startups, we have universities, a high number of graduates, but there is a reality to this. First of all, to make good on those success factors, we need investment, but factors such as those can hide the underlying poverty that we see in Edinburgh. In the 10 years of declining budgets at Edinburgh, we have seen real impacts in the vital services that some of the poorest people in our communities need in order to get by. We have seen cuts in growing class sizes and fewer teachers. We have also seen increasingly those teachers teaching in older schools. I would like to raise again the case of Libertine. I have four high schools in my constituency. Libertine was built in the 1950s and has barely seen investment since. Edinburgh is the second to last in terms of funding per head behind Aberdeen and has consistently seen twice the level of cuts compared to the Scottish average. Indeed, it has seen a 10 per cent cut in its funding since 2013-14. That is £150 per person. On that note, I will finish my comments and just agree with my colleague James Dorn, that we cannot support the specialist settlement, because it just frankly short changes local government and vital services. I call James Dorn and please you, the last week in the open debate. Thank you, Presiding Officer. There is no question that the Government is being pushed into making never more difficult choices when it does come to public spending and finance. There is also no doubt that we would like to be given more to local authorities. However, let us not pretend here that the block grant is not being cut, which obviously has an impact on day-to-day spending decreasing across the board. Yes, of course I will go down. Daniel Johnson In my comments, it has been cut by 1.5 per cent. Why is the Scottish Government cut by 4.5 per cent in the same period? James Dorn. I think that I already touched on that answer when I asked for an intervention and you refused to answer it. Obviously, we have made a priority of spending in the NHS. We have protected local authorities as much as we possibly can, given the financial settlement that we are getting from them. What I do not see is where the money is coming from for any of these fantasy projects that you keep on bringing forward. If you are bringing forward something, you have to say how you are going to pay for it. From nobody in this chamber, have I seen anybody who does that? Over the next two years, the figure is going to fall by more than £500 million. When I was a councillor at Glasgow City Council and council group leader for a while and for the years after as a Glasgow MSP, all I heard from the Labour-led administration was cries over and over again for the council tax to be unfrozen. Freezing the council tax for families across Scotland was a progressive policy and it benefited households across the country. However, as everybody in here knows, I am a reasonable man and I can understand that it needs change. The Scottish Government did unfreeze the tax and councils have the option of raising the council tax by up to 3 per cent, a total of £77 million. What puzzles me is the unwillingness of many of the Labour-led administrations to grab this opportunity with both hands, something they asked for and something they refused to use. For example, last year, Labour and North Lanarkshire Cup posts protested outside the Parliament and made claims that the SNP was responsible for the staff losses. However, this year, they refused to increase council tax even for the richest households to any extent that would allow them to save any of those staff members. Call me cynical, but it was a local authority election last year and I do have to wonder if votes were more important to that administration than protecting those services and workers. This year, the same council and many other Labour-led administrations are still making cuts to jobs, quite often backed up by Tory votes in the chamber and including classroom assistance, which was mentioned by James Kelly earlier on in his contribution. However, it does not need to be like that. Compare those councils to the excellent local budgets of other SNP-run administrations. My city of Glasgow, the local authority, has agreed on one of the most progressive budgets in a long time. Taking Claudia back into the local authority has been something that I have been passionate about for a long time, because that service will clearly work better if it has a close partnership between the social work department and the same local authority. Investment in city infrastructure is a commitment to fixed roads, payments and lighting. That is what the public wants. They want to see a commitment to improvement of everyday lives and that is what is happening in Glasgow. As convener of education, I have also got to congratulate councils such as South Lanarkshire who found ways to up the uniform grant to allow children to attend school with the very basics that are required to learn and to feel like they belong. Glasgow City Council again is also planning to tackle child hunger by offering free school meals during the holiday period. Those kind of policies will change the lives of children and young people across the area. As we strive for a fairer Scotland, we should all be welcoming that. I would like to finish by saying that, as a former councillor, I do understand the frustrations around finance, but we must recognise that this Government has been ever more financially restricted by Westminster. It may need to protect services such as the NHS. We still have to find a way to benefit the people of local authorities across Scotland. I would suggest a pay rise for public sector workers, a new progressive tax system and excellent budgets being delivered by some of our biggest councils are the way to do it, until such times as we are an independent country, of course, and to make sure that we not only survive but thrive in these tough economic times, as I point to the Government. I say gently to the member that I do not like the term them. I prefer to hear the opposition or the other Government but not the term them. I now move to closing speeches. I call James Kelly to close for Labour. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I think that there has been a number of interesting points raised in the debate. I was interested in Alexander Stewart's contribution and his stout defence of local government and his view that the Tories supported a fair funding settlement for local government. I would certainly agree with that. However, I would say that during the course of the budget process, it seemed to me that the Tories put forward a view that they wanted to keep taxes as low as possible and that they did not have any solutions in terms of how they would fund local government. I am not sure that the rhetoric from Mr Stewart backed up the reality from the Tories during the budget process. I know that there are people on the other benches who disagreed with Labour's approach to the budget, but at least we set out what our views were. We set out what an alternative budget was in terms of how much money we sought to raise and how we thought that should be spent. The Tories did not go through that exercise. In terms of pay, which has come up from a number of members during the debate, I think that it is unfortunate that although, in relation to local government, the cabinet secretary does not have direct responsibility in relation to pay, he has made a number of announcements of policy intent on pay policy. Therefore, there will be an expectation quite rightly from council workers that they should receive at least the terms of the pay policy that the cabinet secretary has announced. However, the reality is that throughout the process, it was £200 million short at the start, there was no additional money brought forward for pay. That puts councils in a position where they have to choose between, given that fair pay settlement, cutting services and cutting jobs. That is why we see the extent of the job cuts that I touched on in my introductory contribution. I did not include the 100 jobs that Graham Simpson highlighted from South Lanarkshire Council. That takes it up to 1,300. That shows the scale of the problem. Some people in their contributions looked at how we improve the process going forward. Daniel Johnson is right to talk about transparency. How can we properly debate the allocations when we do not have the circular in place? From the cabinet secretary's point of view, it would be useful if we had more information available on what underspends are being recorded throughout the financial year. Clearly, that has become a part of the budget process. Each year, he digs into the underspend in order to fund the deal with the Greens. I did not know Andy Whiteman's strong contribution where he made it clear that local government needed to be more of a priority next year, not just in terms of funding but also in relation to local democracy. That is very important. Fundamentally, we need a different approach in terms of local government. Local government has been penalised year on year. If we want to change that in terms of next year's debate, we need to look at progressive taxation and how we redistribute more power and more services to local government. Otherwise, local councils will continue to be penalised. It is on the basis of the penalties that are taking place that we will oppose the motion at 5 o'clock tonight. Daniel Johnson said in his comments that this is an odd debate. He is right, because the Scottish Government purportedly reports to seek to improve education and outcomes, protect public services and support job creation and growth in Scotland, but its local funding policies have exactly the opposite effect. Mr Dornan's remark said that this is a progressive settlement. I say far from it, because it is local councils and their communities that will be hardest hit by the Scottish National Party's choices in its budget. I have just started. Let me make some progress. Many members have talked about job losses in their local council area, closer to home, and then replied that local councils put forward quite viable proposals for cutting 60 council jobs. 60 jobs is a lot and a huge loss to that part of the world, and that is happening right across Scotland. They are also looking at closing community centres and a whole other bunch of services. I spent most of my Monday this week dealing with a case in Inverclyde whereby the constitution has very limited access to a number of services that were previously available for those suffering from the blight of addiction. A number of those services that are tackling some of Scotland's most deep-rooted problems have been cut in recent years. The cabinet secretary can stand there and talk about real terms this and cash terms that, but when we go back to our constituencies and deal with the fallout of the local authority fundings, the cabinet secretary says that local councils are making choices—they are, but I can show members that they are making choices that they do not want to make. For taking the intervention, there is the local and then there is the national. If Jamie Greene was finance secretary and I had to approve the order today, by what sum would Jamie Greene increase that order and where would he find the resources from to do so? Unfortunately, Jamie Greene has not been the finance secretary for the past 10 years, because I would have grown the Scottish economy at the same rate as the rest of the UK, which this cabinet secretary has quite simply failed to do. I hope that that answers his question. I look forward to dealing with that next time. The cabinet secretary should listen. He does make an important point. Councils are making difficult choices and they are cutting vital local services that are affecting people in our communities. There is also a point that has been made around transparency in this whole process. Those benches will vote for the motion today on the technical reason that we have to see local councils get funding, but it is disappointing that this Parliament is not privy to the updated financial circular that accompanies the order today. We have been asked to vote on key budget information without first seeing it, yet local SNP members are putting out pressure leases with specific numbers on their local council settlements. I would hate to think that they know more about what their council is getting before SPICE or before this Parliament and this chamber. However, we do not need to know the exact figure of free local authority. We know that allocated funding is going to be a challenge for many. To the unsuspecting eye, the £170 million additional settlement may seem promising at first glance, but the reality is that this settlement nowhere near covers the £545 million that COSLA says that local government needs just to maintain current levels of service, notwithstanding any additional increase in services that it has to provide. At this point, I would like to refer to the public sector pay rise proposal. We in those benches have been positive about the need to increase income for the public sector, but the question remains who will pay for those increases. COSLA has said that a 1 per cent pay rise will cost around £70 million, and a 3 per cent increase would require around £140 million of expenditure. The SNP has left local authorities to foot the bill for their proposed promise of public sector pay rises. The idea that council tax increases is this great panacea of local government says two things. It says that council taxpayers should foot the bill for stagnating investment in local authorities, not central government. It ignores the fact that any proposed increase, as we know pretty much every council in Scotland will, will not even scratch the surface of the shortfall that most will face over the next few years. It is this government's poor economic strategies that have left hard-working Scots facing increased taxes whilst their local services are being cut. That funding will not lead to more reliable, well-funded public services from local councils. Council taxpayers across the length and breadth of Scotland will be paying more and will be getting less, and I ask the cabinet secretary to reflect on that. Thank you very much. I call on the cabinet secretary to close for the Government. Cabinet secretary, I call on the minister to wind up the Government. Minister, six minutes please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. The 2018 local government finance order before us today is seeking parliamentary approval to the guaranteed payment of £9.5 billion in revenue support to be paid to Scotland's 32 local authorities to enable them to provide the people of Scotland with the full range of services they need and fully deserve. Scotland's local authorities will continue to play a pivotal role in the Scottish Government's transformative programme of public service reform as we continue to build on the priorities in the 2017 programme for government and focus on delivery of our joint priorities. Before I get into the detail of today's order and respond to some of the comments that have been made, I would like to thank everyone involved in minimising the disruption and inconvenience caused by the extreme weather that we experienced last week, many of whom are employed by our local authorities the length and breadth of Scotland. As you will know, Presiding Officer, the cabinet secretary for finance and the constitution acted immediately when he was asked by the Scottish Borders Council to trigger the bellwin scheme, which can provide emergency financial assistance. By triggering the scheme, that means that any council can submit a request for additional funding under certain circumstances. I can confirm that we have also been contacted by Dumfries and Galloway, Perthyn Cynross, Aberdeenshire and Angus councils. If I could turn to the matters at hand, Presiding Officer, we have heard some interesting comments from members today. If I may start with some of the comments that Mr Stewart made in his opening remarks, where he failed to tell the chamber where the Conservatives would find additional moneys to give to local government, especially from a party, as Mr Kelly pointed out, that he wanted to rip £500 million from the Scottish budget. It is very interesting to hear what he has to say about that if he has any comment about where he would find the money from. No, I thought not. However, Mr Stewart also talked and scaremongered a lot about other things in his remarks. He said that councils may run out of money in the future. For the chamber's knowledge, as at 31 March 2017, local authorities' usable reserves amounted to £1.9 billion, which represents 18 per cent of the total funding provided by two councils by the Scottish Government, £1.9 billion. I will take an intervention from the economic wizard, which is Jamie Greene. It is nice to receive a compliment from the centre benches for a change, but does the minister not accept that local government debt is reaching nearly £17 billion? The idea that they are sitting in huge swath of cash is simply unrealistic and bonkers, in my view. Mr Greene does not know the difference between a compliment and sarcasm, obviously. £1.9 billion, 18 per cent of the money that goes from government to councils, is not an insubstantial sum. It is not up to central government to tell local government how they should spend resource in terms of capital spend. What I would say is that a huge amount of money that is being paid out is being paid out in PPP charges, a scheme that would never have been allowed by this Government and which has been stopped. Others in the chamber should reflect on some of that. If we turn to pay—I will take you in a little while, Mr Rennie, because I have something to say about you. If we turn to pay, inflationary pressures on councils include pay, which makes up an average 60 per cent of council revenue budgets. It is therefore wrong, as members have today, to claim that councils need a real-terms increase in overall funding plus additional money for pay to keep pace with inflation. That is wrong. We are providing local authorities with a funding increase of £174.9 million in the 2018-19 budget. That includes £24 million, which is our contribution to increase in teachers' pay for 2017-18. Taken together with the £77 million that can be raised through the council tax, councils will have access to an additional £252 million in revenue funding. That is a 2.6 per cent increase in cash terms and a real-terms increase of 1.1 per cent. The additional costs that estimate councils will face as a result of 2018-19 pay policy is around £220 million, so it has the money to increase pay. Mr Kelly was right for once in terms of what he said in his summing up. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance does not have local locus when it comes to local government pay. That is entirely a matter for local authorities. I want to get one point in response to Mr Rennie, as I said, that I would. The order always gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to the late and great Brian Adam, the man who suggested the funding floor that the Government implemented, a funding floor that did not exist under previous Labour-liberal administrations, which provided a fairer settlement for the likes of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. If I can finish on this— You must finish. What we see in Aberdeen is £3.9 million more in 2018-19 and an additional £8.7 million because of that floor. I pay tribute to Brian Adam for that achievement, which was never achieved under previous administrations. I urge members to support the order today. That concludes the debate. That concludes the debate on local government finance, Scotland Order 2018, and we now move on to the next item of business. I will pause for a few minutes.