Robert Brown - council tax will risk Schools plan

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 22nd Oct 2007

Glasgow Liberal Democrat MSP Robert Brown has today said that plans by the SNP Government to freeze Council tax would put at risk the vital schools modernisation programme in Soouth Lanarkshire, and would also lead to cuts in other key Council services.

Mr. Brown was commenting after the recent row in the Rutherglen Reformer and was scathing about claims made by SNP Councillors that a new funding mechanism for schools - proposed by the SNP - would solve all problems.

Mr. Brown was Deputy Minister for Education and Young People in the previous Scottish Government.

Robert Brown said:

"I am extremely worried about the effect that a Council tax freeze imposed by the SNP Government could have on Rutherglen and Cambuslang - particularly against the background of the threat from the SNP to the funding of the school modernisation programme.

"It is actually a matter of simple arithmetic. Councils have to pay out more each year just to stand still - because of price rises for materials and wage rises for staff. That is why the Council tax has to go up by around the rate of inflation each year. If it does not, then there is not enough money and cuts have to be made in services.

"No one like paying any kind of taxes but most people know that Councils run schools, collect rubbish, maintain the roads and parks, and provide numerous necessary local services of that kind - and that they cannot do this without proper funding coming from taxation.

"The statement by the local SNP that they were confident that the SNP administration would make up the shortfall on the schools programme if there was a Council tax freeze just does not stand up to examination. It will not happen.

"The whole idea that the Government in Edinburgh should fix Council tax rates at a local level is ridiculous. That is what local Councillors are elected for, and, if they make a hash of it, the voters can get rid of them. These things are for local people to decide, not bureaucrats in Edinburgh.

"We built or modernised 300 schools when Liberal Democrats were in the Scottish Government in the last Parliament. The new funding method suggested by the SNP does not yet exist, is entirely unproven and is thought by many people to be unworkable. It is quite impossible for the SNP to guarantee that they can match our successful building programme "brick for brick" with a new scheme which does not yet even exist."

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