Council accounts are grim reading

BY RENFREWSHIRE COUNCIL LABOUR GROUP LEADER IAIN MCMILLAN

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At last week's special meeting of the full council, we were presented with Renfrewshire Council's audited accounts for 2024/2025.

They made pretty sober reading. Basically, the council is in a pretty precarious financial position with unthinkable decisions to be made in terms of cutting services to balance the books.

Our financial management was praised and I have no criticism of our officers who are tasked with looking after the accounts.

The problem is, in order to balance the books, the SNP administration had to make cuts to services, raid the money we had in the bank and the council tax was put up by a record amount.

That is why we need to look at how local councils are financed as we simply cannot continue like this.

Two things concern me with one being the record amount of money passed to the Scottish Government by the UK Government and, despite the commitment to scrap the council tax nearly 20 years ago by the SNP, it has never happened.

The money from the UK Government does not seem to have been passed on in any great amount to councils and a change to local taxation may offer councils some flexibility in terms of raising cash to help preserve, and even improve, services.

No matter what happens at the Scottish parliamentary elections in May 2026, something has to give in terms of council finances.