Briefings from Manifestos – 3
POVERTY, SOCIAL JUSTICE & LOCAL GOVERNMENT
This is one of a series of SCPO Briefing Papers in
which we are taking the topics identified by the churches as key
election issues and summarising the Manifesto commitments on these
themes of the parties now represented in Parliament. In the new
situation, all of these are significant background to coming policy.
Banking
Labour would develop community banking schemes and
would work with the commercial banking sector to ensure that all
communities have access to basic banking facilities without having to
pay for them.
The Greens would develop an Ethical Financial Services
strategy.
Community
The SNP would pilot a community
empowerment scheme giving deprived communities the ability to opt for
empowered status, allowing local people to co-manage a proportion of
public spending and services. They would consult on measures to enable
new models of community management of facilities within local
authority control, such as parks or libraries, to ensure that local
people get the best use out of them. They would also consider ways to
transfer under-used public assets into community ownership without the
need for ministerial approval, where community benefit can be clearly
demonstrated. The Lib Dems also want opportunities for communities to
manage local libraries, parks, sports facilities and other spaces and
services where local people want it. The Lib Dem model would see local
people form appropriate management bodies responsible for day-to-day
running, with their own devolved budget, but remaining within the
strategic control of the principal local authority. The Greens want to
ensure that decisions are taken at the most local level possible too,
with communities participating in decision-making, especially in the
planning system.
Labour would ask Highlands and Islands Enterprise to
bring forward a report on an all-Scotland approach to support the
development of social enterprise.
Labour would establish Town Centre
Trusts which would be tasked with developing local plans for town
centre regeneration. They would also invest an initial £50m into a
Town Centre Turnaround Fund which would refocus derelict buildings and
contaminated land funds, and historic and townscape heritage funds to
pump more investment into small towns. The £50m would be a primer to
attract public and private funding. Conservatives would establish a
Town Centre Regeneration Fund, worth £20m every year, available to
towns for regeneration projects. The Lib Dems want to see more
innovative local funding vehicles to lever in private investment and
work towards a National Regeneration Fund, creating a partnership
between the public and private sectors to support infrastructure
costs, land remediation, mixed use developments and environmental
improvements.
Labour would establish a new community environment standard and set up
an action team of NGOs and others to improve access to greenspace for
families and children. Children and young people would also be involved
in planning play and activity areas.
The Lib Dems would put in place a legislative presumption against the
sale of urban greenspace and playing fields for development; but in the
limited cases where sales are allowed "every single penny" from the
sales would go to improving local greenspace and expanding activity
opportunities.
The Lib Dems want a new Common Good Act to modernise the framework for
land; property or funds to be held in trust for the local community; and
allow the revitalisation of common good funds where local people can
have access to money to regenerate local communities and spaces.
The Greens would introduce a Sustainable Communities Bill to replace
top-down Regeneration Outcome Agreements with Community Service
Agreements to provide local residents with a meaningful say in
determining mainstream service priorities. The Bill would also reform
the Scottish Enterprise 'Business Gateway' to support new ways of
stimulating business formation and growth (including social enterprise)
in disadvantaged communities; it would require that at least 5-10% of
land in regeneration areas is kept in some form of community ownership
and that at least 10% of public spending goes through social enterprises
by 2012.
Debt
The SNP want to establish a Scottish Lenders Code of Conduct setting
minimum standards for lending practices with appropriate safeguards
against exploitation.
Labour wanted to get tough on loan sharks and, to this end, would ensure
appropriate surveillance evidence is admissible in court; provide
increased protection to witnesses; and introduce Serious Crime
Prevention Orders to exclude loan sharks from the communities they prey
on.
Employment
Labour want the Full Employment Agency to work closely with the UK
Government to help 100,000 people off benefit and into work by 2015.
They would end 16-19 year olds not being in employment, education or
training; reduce the number of adults on incapacity benefit; and help
lone parents into work and training.
Income
The SNP are committed to cohesion – for the wealth of every region to
increase and for there to be a 10% reduction in GDP disparity per head
between the richest and poorest parts of Scotland.
Post-independence, the SNP plan to develop a fully integrated tax and
benefit system to guarantee every citizen a minimum income, remove
financial barriers to work, and help people lift themselves out of
poverty. Prior to independence they would work to reduce dependency by
improving educational and economic opportunities, particularly in areas
of deprivation. The Greens also support a citizens income scheme, which
would replace all tax allowances and most welfare benefits and it would
be set a level to provide basic shelter, food, clothing and heating.
The SNP said that they would set specific targets to increase the
proportion of national wealth held by each of the lowest 6 income
deciles.
As part of the Healthy Green Homes initiative, the Lib Dems would
support the introduction of Warm Zones to target fuel poor households
and ensure they receive the funding support available to them.
The Greens would end age discrimination in the minimum wage.
Miscellaneous
Labour would establish a national anti-poverty unit, working for social
justice, reporting directly to the First Minister.
Labour and the Lib Dems wanted to supplement GDP with other measures,
such as indicators of wider well being and quality of life. The Greens
also said that Government decision making should take account of
sustainability and social justice, not GDP alone.
The Lib Dems would address the growing number of people living in fuel
poverty in the private rental sector by giving more support to local
authorities to work in partnership with landlords, including low and
zero interest loans and a grant support scheme for buildings in multiple
occupation.
To help develop a consensus on tackling poverty, the Lib Dems would
establish a cross-party working group, involving people affected by
poverty and their organisations, to explore and address the causes and
effects of poverty and wealth inequality in Scotland.
The Lib Dems would introduce a Project Enterprise scheme for Scotland to
provide micro-credit, business support, advice and training to people
from low income backgrounds to help them to lift themselves out of
poverty and break the cycle.
The Green Party expressed support for the universal provision of
services rather than means testing.
School meals
The SNP would pilot free school meals for pupils in Primary 1-3,
starting in areas of deprivation, and increase entitlement to free
school meals for a further 40,000 children living in poverty.
Labour would increase free school meals, to an extra 100,000 children in
working families on maximum working tax credit, as would the Lib Dems.
The Greens would introduce free, healthy school meals.
RACIAL JUSTICE
The SNP said the Act of Settlement 1701 is discriminatory and
accordingly they would seek agreement with the Government in
London
on its appeal.
The Lib Dems said they would improve data collection systems to measure
more accurately Scotland’s ethnic diversity and trends in racial
inequality.
REFUGEES & ASYLUM
The SNP would seek an enhanced role for the Parliament in the Shortage
Occupation List and they would press the case for a Scottish green-card
that is awarded to qualified immigrants, who want to come to Scotland
for five years or longer.
Labour would create a one-stop shop for employers, workers and migrants
to provide advice on employment, skills and qualifications.
The Lib Dems said dawn raids are not the right approach to removing
people, especially for families with children and that they would press
the Home Office to change the system to a more sensitive, integrated
approach involving the education authorities, social work departments
and the UK agencies where children are involved. The Greens said they
would campaign to rule out dawn raids by legislating against forced
entry and they would press the Home Office to reduce deportations of
families.
The Greens would also provide emergency services for destitute people
arriving in Scotland from abroad.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
The SNP want to scrap the council tax and replace it with a local income
tax set at 3p. This would apply at both the basic and higher income tax
rate and would not be levied on savings income. Second homes would
continue to be liable for local tax and would make the same level of
contribution as present, with payments made through business rates. The
SNP said that 9 out of 10 pensioners would pay less under this local
income tax.
The Lib Dems also want to scrap the council tax and replace it with a
local income tax based on the ability to pay. Under their plans they say
70% of households would be better off and most pensioner households
would pay nothing. The Lib Dems said that the average local income tax
rate in Scotland would be 3.5 to 3.75%.
Labour pledged not to increase council tax by more than inflation for
the next four years and they would introduce an extra two bands to the
existing council tax system: one at the top and one at the bottom. They
said that would ease the financial pressure for those in the lowest
value properties and ensure that those in higher value properties make a
more proportionate contribution. Labour also said that within 2 years
they would cut water and sewerage bills by 50% for all pensioner
households.
The Conservatives would cut council tax in half for all pensioner
households where the occupants are over the age of 65 in addition to the
discount a single pensioner already receives. The Conservatives would
write this into statute alongside the existing single person’s discount,
in order to guarantee that the discount would be ongoing.
The Greens want to replace the council tax and uniform business rates
with a Land Value Tax which they said would provide a fairer basis for
local authority funding.
The Conservatives would commission a review of local government with a
remit to pass power, wherever possible, "back to people". While the
review is in progress, the Conservatives would reduce the ring-fencing
of funds and with the exception of funding for joint police and fire
boards, local authorities would be free to spend their money as they see
fit.
