| UNISON City of Edinburgh Branch |
|
 |
|
|
Local income tax jobs concern The Scottish Parliament has taken a decision in principle to scrap the Council Tax in favour of a Local Income Tax. While it is too early to guess what form this will take, the SNP plan was for a national 3% income tax across the board. The obvious impact would be in the council's Revenue and Benefits Sector and the Lothian Valuation Joint Board where it would be highly likely to result in redundancies. The less obvious impact will be felt across local government with the implications that this has on council funding. The SNP's election website admitted the plan could leave them about £750million short of what is currently needed to fund local government. Add to that the problem of taking decision making about finance away from councils an there is a major worry that services would face huge cuts and perhaps centralisation. UNISON will be taking these issues up with the new Executive, stressing the need to protect jobs and services - and local accountability. |
||||