09 November 2007

Councils in clover

Question: How do you persuade local authorities not to put up council tax?

Answer: It's easy - you stuff their pockets with gold.

But increasing the local authority share of the Scottish public expenditure cake from 33% to nearly 37% carries a cost, the details of which we will no doubt learn when Mr Swinney makes his budget statement next Wednesday. For that £400 million will make a big hole in the available resources. You can see why there are fears for the extension of the M74.

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