News

May 2011. The Scottish National Party won an overall majority of seats in the Scottish Parliamentary Election on 5th May 2011, and has formed the new Scottish Government. The number of seats won were:

• Scottish National Party 69.
• Scottish Labour Party 37.
• Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party 15.
• Scottish Liberal Democratic Party 5.
• Scottish Green Party 2.
• Independent 1.

April 2011: The Scottish political parties have now issued their manifestos for the forthcoming Scottish Parliamentary election on 5th May 2011. Our understanding of their policies on local government taxation is given in the Website section Scottish Political Parties' Policies.

February 2011: At the time of writing, we still await full details of most Scottish Political Parties' proposals for local government funding in the next Scottish Parliament. The next Scottish Parliamentary Election will be held on 5th May 2011. (See Website section "Scottish Political Parties' Policies").

24th October 2010: It was reported that the UK Chancellor, George Osborne, had indicated willingness to transfer the amount of Council Tax Benefit payments in Scotland (currently about £400 million) to the Scottish Parliament to use at its discretion. This contrasts with the previous Westminster Government's refusal to transfer these funds, and should remove one of the alleged difficulties in introducing a Local Income Tax at an acceptable rate.