THERE is nothing much left for local government to do. My local authority has given up responsibility for social work, housing and leisure. Education is entirely decided by council officers, as are 90 per cent of planning applications, so I hesitate to leave 36 councillors with even less to do, but setting the council tax has become a total farce.
For a decade council tax rates were centrally set by the SNP freeze. More recently the SNP has simply reduced its allocation to councils by the equivalent of a three per cent rise in council tax. Little wonder that all 32 councils played the game and raised council tax by the maximum allowed.
Council tax has become a centralised tax. That should be normalised so we remove the pantomime of councillors making “tough decisions” when it is Hobson’s choice. With better distribution of the tax raised the rich areas would no longer get progressively richer and the poor areas poorer.
Councils should retain the power to set whatever charges they choose for non-resident properties – second homes, empty homes, rental homes and so on. That would be local solutions for local problems and require actual policy decisions by councillors.
James Robb,
Redclyffe Gardens, Helensburgh.
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