Council tax hikes should be kept to minimum, Shona Robison says

Council tax increases should be kept to a “minimum” next year, Finance Secretary Shona Robison has claimed.

Her government is planning to end a freeze on local authority levies from April.

Robison said a proposed £1bn uplift in funding for councils should prevent them from introducing any “large” tax increases.

Ahead of the Budget, council body Cosla warned that increases could be needed to protect “vital services”.

It is yet to issue a full response to the government’s spending plans, with council leaders due to meet on Friday.

Council tax is set, administered and spent by local authorities. The government has previously offered a financial incentive for them to comply with a cap or freeze.

Robison told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “The settlement that we are giving to local governments, I think, will mean that they don’t have to put large increases to council tax.”

She added: “I don’t think there’s any administration of any political colour that will want to look at citizens in the eye, given this settlement, and increase the council tax beyond what is required.

“And I’m sure there’ll be a sensible outcome in those discussions.”

Funding for local authorities will exceed £15bn for the first time under the government’s Budget plan.

Robison said this would include £289m of non-ring fenced discretionary funding in the general revenue grant.

That record settlement would still fall short of the £15.4bn Cosla called for ahead of the Budget.

A recent survey by the Local Government Information Unit found that about a fifth of councils were considering tax rises of at least 10% next year.

Perth and Kinross councillors have already voted in favour of proposals that would see tax increases of 10% in 2025 and 2026, and 6% in 2027.

The plan will be subject to approval when the local authority agrees its budget in February.

Since 2007, council tax has generally either been frozen or increases have been capped by Holyrood.

According to figures from 2021-22, council tax revenue made up about a fifth of local authority funding.

The levy was frozen in 2024-25, with the government paying councils more than £200m to cover the cost.

A freeze was welcome news for homeowners, but it angered councils desperately short of cash.

The move has also been criticised as an inefficient way of helping the worst off, with rates based on property values from 1991.

After the Budget, Cosla said it would “spend the coming days analysing the implications for local authorities”.

Scotland’s 32 councils will be doing the sums in the coming days to work out exactly what the Budget means for them.

Some of that money will be ring-fenced or tied to particular objectives or projects.

Councils have a legal obligation to set balanced budgets.

The council tax makes up a relatively small amount of each council’s overall budget but it is hugely important as it is paid by every household.

But would significant rises be acceptable to local voters? Would they be unhappy about bills rising? Or would they be happy to pay more if they felt local services were being protected?

In 2023, while inflation was running high, councils had the freedom to increase council tax by as much as they felt appropriate. Many went for rises of 5% though a few went for more.

Individual councils will decide on local council tax increases in around two months’ time.

Scottish Conservative chairman Craig Hoy said the Scottish government should have used the Budget to reverse “damaging tax increases”, which he said hampered economic growth.

Robison said proposed changes to lower income tax thresholds would provide “certainty and stability” for taxpayers.

The move would save people with earnings below £30,300 up to £28.27 per year compared to if they lived elsewhere in the UK, according to the Chartered Institute of Taxation.

Robison said the income tax measures set out in this Budget would raise an extra £1.7bn for the Scottish government, compared to if the UK system was in place.

A proposal to effectively scrap the two-child cap on benefits in Scotland was the “rabbit out of the hat” in the SNP Budget.

The UK government policy prevents parents from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for a third child, with a few exemptions.

Robison said she would aim to provide funding to the families of the 15,000 affected children in Scotland by April 2026 – but did not set out how the government would achieve this.

The government estimates that would cost between £110m and £150m in 2026-27. Independent economists say the costs could rise to up to £300m in future years.

SNP ministers say Social Security Scotland would get £3m over the next two financial years to build the system required to mitigate the cap, but that they need the UK government to provide data on who is missing out on benefits due to the policy.

“I would be astonished if the UK Labour government didn’t ensure that the Department of Work and Pensions was approaching this in a sensible, productive way,” Robison said.

In each of the past three years, the Scottish government has been forced to use emergency powers to balance its budget. Announcing cuts of £500m earlier this year, it cited higher than expected public sector pay deals after they exceeded the forecast 3%.

For 2025-26, the government has again budgeted for a 3% increase, though it is part of a 9% rise over three years.

Robison insisted the government would not have to use emergency measures next year.

She also said she would not “settle” for a reported £300m compensation package from the UK government to compensate for a rise in employers’ National Insurance payments.

Holyrood ministers say the UK-wide tax change could increase public sector staffing costs by more than £500m.

A UK government spokesperson said the chancellor’s Autumn Budget had “delivered more money than ever before for Scottish public services and the Scottish government receives over 20% more funding per person than equivalent UK government spending”.

They added: “It is for the Scottish government to allocate this across its own public sector and meet the priorities of people in Scotland.”