Protecting essential public services

The Scottish Budget delivers a total funding package amounting to £11.1 billion for local government.

This provides local authorities with a £197.5 million increase for day to day spending on essential public services in 2019-20, alongside a £207.6 million increase on their capital spending budget.

Finance Secretary Derek Mackay said despite a £2 billion reduction in real terms to Scotland’s block grant over the last decade, the 2019-20 Scottish Budget provides local authorities with a real terms increase in overall funding of over £210 million. This alongside a real terms increase in both the revenue and capital settlements.

Mr Mackay said:

“The Scottish Government has continued to ensure that our partners in local government receive a fair funding settlement despite further cuts to the Scottish Budget from the UK Government.

“After removing the health uplift the Scottish Government fiscal resource block grant funding goes down by £340 million or 1.3% in real terms for 2019-20.  Despite that reduction, we have still provided a 2% real terms uplift in the total Local Government settlement for 2019-20.

“If local authorities choose to use their powers to increase Council Tax by up to 3% they can generate up to an additional £80 million to support the delivery of essential local services.”

Background

2019-20 Local Government funding allocations.