Chamber and committees

That is an interesting perspective. I believe that the Government’s council tax review group is looking at that, which might be a start. However, going by the expressions on some of your faces, maybe we will not hold our breath on that.

Good morning, and welcome to the 26th meeting in 2024 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. Pam Gosal and Fulton MacGregor join us remotely. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent.

I welcome Collette Stevenson to her first meeting of the committee and invite her to declare any relevant interests.

Thank you very much, and thank you for substituting for Emma Roddick this morning.

Thank you for those perspectives.

So it gets triggered at the UK level.

I move on to local authority debt. Professor Heald, I will get a sense from you first and then go to others if they want to come in. Do you think that the £1 billion increase in local authority debt between 2021-22 and 2022-23 gives rise to sustainability concerns? At what point does council borrowing become a problem? As you pointed out, councils have increased their level of borrowing in recent years.

You mentioned the council tax freeze, so I bring in Pam Gosal, who is interested in that area.

I bring in Fulton MacGregor, who also joins us online. He has a number of questions.

Who wants to come in on that one?

Are there any other views on the demands of local government workforce settlements?

We will take those questions on board and see what we can do. I note, though, the comments that were made earlier about the desire for decisions to be made at the most local level, and that is the direction of travel, in the good words of Donald Dewar. Perhaps an answer lies in there.

We move on to financial sustainability and different income-raising options, and I invite Willie Coffey to start us off.