Councils will be surprised by size of funding package, says Swinney

Councils in Scotland will be surprised by the amount of funding they will receive for next year, the First Minister has said as he warned against high council tax rises.

Finance Secretary Shona Robison announced an increase of £1 billion for local authorities in last week’s Budget, with detail about how much each of the 32 authorities will receive due this week.

The Budget also did not reimpose the freeze on council tax that was put in place last year under then-first minister Humza Yousaf, leading to concerns that rates could spiral as councils look to raise more funding.

Speaking to the PA news agency on Monday, Mr Swinney said: “Councils will get in the local government circular this week the authority by authority picture.

“They need to look at that to see how it affects their financial circumstances and for certain authorities – I think it will be the case for all authorities – that the settlement will be better than they expected.

“Therefore, if councils were planning on a larger council tax increase, they are going to get a better funding settlement, which I think makes it less likely that they require significant increases in the council tax.

“But all of this is predicated on the passage of the Government’s Budget and that depends on parliamentary votes, and I made it very clear we can not have any parliamentary games about this Budget.

“Real services, real lives depend on the Budget passing and I encourage Parliament to engage substantially on the steps necessary to pass the Budget.”