Chamber and committees

Welcome back. We will continue to take evidence as part of our budget scrutiny. I welcome the witnesses on our second panel: Councillor Gail Macgregor is resources spokesperson for COSLA; Eileen Rowand is executive director of finance and corporate services at Fife Council and is also representing COSLA; and Martin Booth is executive director for finance at Glasgow City Council and is representing SOLACE. Thank you for joining us today.

We move straight to questions. If witnesses wish to respond or contribute to the discussion, please type R in the chat box to indicate that. We tend to direct our questions to specific people.

I will start. This question is for Eileen Rowand, but anyone else is welcome to come in. What are COSLA’s views on the real-terms cuts to core revenue funding in 2022-23 and the impact that those could have on services, communities and employees?

Item 2 is to take evidence as part of the committee’s budget scrutiny. The committee will take evidence from three panels this morning. First, we will hear from Unison. We will then hear from the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and, finally, we will hear from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy and the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government.

I welcome to the meeting Johanna Baxter, who is head of local government at Unison. Thank you for joining us today.

We will move straight to questions. Has Unison conducted analysis of the impact that the 2022-23 budget may have on its members and the individuals and communities that they serve?

We will move on.

Thank you, Martin. We will move to questions from Elena Whitham.

Thank you very much for that. I will start off the questions; I direct the first at Kate Forbes. I am aware of the future plans to publish multiyear settlements, which I strongly welcome, but what else can the Scottish Government do to help local authorities to tackle long-term challenges and to plan strategically?

If you would like to come in now, Eileen, that would be great.

We will move to questions from Willie Coffey.

We have come to the end of our questions. I thank Johanna Baxter for being with us today—her responses have been very helpful.

We will suspend to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

My next question is for Gail Macgregor. Considering that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy said that she did not recognise some of the figures that were used by COSLA in response to questions from the Finance and Public Administration Committee, what are your views on the yearly recurring debate between COSLA and the Scottish Government, and what solutions would you suggest to encourage co-operation between the two?

Does Unison believe that additional council tax raising powers will help local authorities to alleviate budgetary pressures? More broadly, does it believe that council tax is fit for purpose?