Britain needs to rethink devolution

Scotland is stuck. This week has only confirmed it. SNP leader Humza Yousaf used his party conference in Aberdeen to announce a council tax freeze. It quickly emerged that he had done so without telling councils and without telling even his own cabinet. As his deputy admitted in an interview, the decision to freeze was agreed between 24 and 48 hours before the speech. Council tax was reportedly chosen because there wasn’t enough time to get expert advice on the impact of freezing other taxes.

Councils are furious. Not only weren’t they consulted, but they are already making £300 million in cuts amid a two-year budget shortfall of £1.1 billion. The blame, councils say, lies squarely with the SNP-run Scottish Government, which has spent much of its 16 years in power hacking away at local government funding allocations. They will almost certainly have to find even more efficiencies on top of those that have hollowed out local services in recent years.