Edinburgh council leader Adam McVey blames authority cuts on Westminster UK Government

The leader of Edinburgh City Council has pointed the finger at Westminster for a cut to local authority budgets outlined by the Scottish Government.

SNP Councillor Adam McVey said the solution to a reported £371 million ‘gap’ in the Government’s draft budget for councils “lies with Westminster”.

Earlier this month, Finance and Economy Secretary Kate Forbes set funding for local authorities in 2022-23 at £6.9 billion — whilst the Scottish Parliament Information Centre says council budgets should have risen to around £7.1 bn to keep up with inflation.

On Wednesday, the cut was slammed by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), which held a meeting of all Scottish council leaders following the budget announcements.

Adam McVey, leader of Edinburgh City Council blamed Westminster for a cut to local authority budgets outlined by the Scottish Government.

Councillor Alison Evison, COSLA President, said all leaders agreed they will “not sit back and simply accept this”.

Cllr McVey was challenged on the matter at a full council meeting last week when he was asked by Lib Dem Councillor Robert Aldridge: “Given the potentially extreme impact on council services and council finances arising from Omicron, will the leader actively lobby the SNP/Green Government to reverse their real terms cuts to council spending outlined in their budget proposals as outlined by COSLA, perhaps delaying or by cutting back on the large sums of money being spent on preparing for an Indyref 2?”

The council leader replied: “I will of course continue to speak to the Scottish Government and Councillor Day and I have a meeting with Kate Forbes, Finance and Economy Secretary coming up fairly soon.

“We will of course make those points and I have already written to the cabinet secretary laying out Edinburgh’s position, but can I say on this matter, the fundamental point here is about how much financial assistance is made available through Westminster.

“The Westminster Government right now is currently saying they are not in lockdown and therefore not giving financial support at scale to businesses or stepping up furlough activity which the First Minister has asked for and not armed significant Covid displacement monies to local authorities in England which would obviously have barnet consequentials for us in Scotland.

“So the solution to this I’m afraid lies with Westminster in being able to really give the amount of money that is required. Of course there is a discussion around the base budget of Edinburgh and we’ll continue that discussion throughout but in terms of our ability to mitigate and manage the huge change that this could mean over the coming weeks we do need that additional funding.”

The council’s Labour depute leader Cammy Day asked Cllr McVey if he agreed if the funding announced by the Scottish Government “is not a fair settlement for our capital city”.

The leader responded that he looks forward to productive discussions with the Scottish Government about how they can get to a better solution on issues such as homelessness and “put the council in

a stronger financial position both to deliver for the people of Edinburgh in terms of the services they need on a day-to-day basis and also deal with some of the extreme challenges both to income and

expenditure that the ongoing Covid situation brings.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.