WHEN Humza Yousaf announced the SNP’s council tax freeze in October last year, it caught his Green government partners by surprise.
It would later be cited as an early crack in the relationship between the two parties.
But why? Basically no one likes council tax and as some in the SNP would challenge: If people think it’s a regressive tax, then why should it go up?
Part of the problem was the nature of the announcement, made at the party’s annual conference in Aberdeen.
At the time, the SNP were smarting from their defeat at the Rutherglen by-election just 11 days before.
Earlier that year, the SNP had just been through an intensely bruising leadership election – their first real contest in 20 years. Not to mention the arrest of senior party figures in the ongoing police investigation into the party’s finances.
They needed a feel-good factor going into the 2024 election and it was decided that easing the burden of council tax by freezing rates was something they could manage with their limited room for manoeuvre.
Alex Salmond had done the same thing in 2008 and it worked out pretty well for him – four years later he broke the Holyrood system with an SNP majority. It must have seemed a risk worth taking at a time when the polls were not looking great for the SNP.
There were a few problems with that. Firstly, the party were at the time in a power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens.
The Bute House Agreement didn’t require the two parties to agree on everything – but it did include a “no surprises” clause.
The Greens did not take especially well to the surprise. “We are concerned about the effect this freeze could have on already-strained frontline public services if it is not properly funded,” said Ross Greer (above) at the time.
He said the Greens would “now work with our government colleagues in the SNP to work through the details” and make sure it was “sustainably financed”.
Despite their concerns, the Greens were reasonably measured in their response. Councils were apoplectic.
Cosla, the body which represents all Scottish councils, took a day to digest the announcement. A statement thundered: “We deplore the way the announcement was made and its substance”.
There had also been a “no surprises” clause in the Verity House Agreement, a deal signed by the SNP and council leaders in a bid to reset relations which had soured over years of declining central government funding.
Cosla demanded an urgent meeting with the Government and stressed that local taxation should be left to “democratically elected councils to determine”.
After that year’s Scottish Budget, at which £144 million was set aside for the policy, Cosla again found itself on the offensive.
That sum, substantial though it was, did not amount to the “fully-funded freeze” they said they'd been promised. In a nutshell, the SNP were being accused of forcing councils into making cuts.
Finance Secretary Shona Robison (above) eventually found an extra £62.7m to fully fund the freeze and eventually a couple of holdout rebel councils backed down from imposing rises.
The controversy rumbled on, with critics pointing to research by the Fraser of Allander Institute showing that the freeze benefits the wealthiest people.
Criticism also focused on research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies which showed that income tax rises by the SNP had been offset by the council tax freeze and reduced funds for public spending.
Despite the political controversy, people out in the real world for the most party seemed to like the policy.
A poll released earlier this year showed that 69% of Scots backed the freeze. Not that it helped the SNP in the General Election in the end.
