Council taxes are set to rise for over 83,000 properties in Edinburgh under SNP proposals; hitting hard working families.
Properties in Council tax bands E-H will be affected, with the changes set to raise an extra £15.6 million in the region.
While this seems like a great earner for local authorities, the Scottish Government will claw this money back by cutting the grant they currently provide to councils in a cash-grab to pay for their ‘educational attainment fund’.
This means that money raised in Edinburgh could be spent in places like Glasgow, leaving communities paying extra money but not reaping the benefits.
Commenting on these proposals, Scottish Conservative and Unionist MSP for the Lothian Region, Jeremy Balfour, said:
“Although I support the establishment of an educational attainment fund, I do not support these centralist proposals that the SNP Scottish Government want to introduce.
“Money raised by local households should be spent on local services; instead the SNP government is taking this power away and denying locally elected councillors a say on where the extra money could be better spent.
“This is yet another example of this SNP Scottish Government taking powers away from local communities and depriving our local economies of millions of pounds.
“I can assure my constituents that when these proposals come before the Scottish Parliament I will not be supporting them”.