01/05/2012 Newsnight Scotland

Brain of Britain. I gave this up because the winds

would not leave me alone! -- the winds.

Tonight, you have just two days to make up your mind about voting for

councillors. But it will not make any difference to how much money

they have to spend. How can they get you interested? Also be the

latest in the Murdoch phone hacking saga.

Other anymore and says? Scotland's 32 councils on Thursday,

whoever wins or loses, one issue which will dominate his money. Not

just how to spend it but how to implement it tight squeeze on

budgets. Our economy editor Douglas Fraser is about -- reports.

Which council services should be kept afloat? Would you pay higher

charges for some of them? The candidates may not be committing it

yet, but the winners this week may face tough choices from the big

squeeze on council budgets. That decline will be made up by higher

council tax, so the key questions - To many schools, too much capacity.

It means school closures. A number of areas, that will be the first

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 40 seconds

thing on the agenda. That is an area where was see a lot

of change coming in after the elections. Charges, fees, prices,

will go up in a lot of places. Or there could be better

connections across borders. This is the boundary between two

councils - Clackmannanshire, where Labour has controlled for the past

five years, on the other side, Stirling, where the SNP has been in

control. Two tribes by getting their act together. The education

systems are getting more integrated. They are trying the same between

Midlothian and East Lothian, so why not do three in Ayrshire councils

all along Clydeside? Another difficult question - what about an

idea proposed in Edinburgh... Be significant number of the big

companies who were previously quite interested are now saying we have

had our fingers burnt in Edinburgh. It costs a lot of money to have a

year long discussion about that kind of arrangement. If nothing

happens, those kind of companies are discouraged from doing that, I

suspect a lot more concentrated activity in England. Where there is

a more welcoming climate. No compulsory redundancy sits in

the same category as the council tax. It is be restriction on local

democracy working its course. Which has to be removed. You have to be

able to shift around in terms of the workforce, and very pay as well.

In the public sector in Ireland, they have taken between 15 and 20%

and got on with it. I am not advocating exactly that route, but

people have to say it is it realistic to be 200,000 for the

chief executive? Figuring that the council budget

puzzle is not child's play. These are big challenges, likely to

impact on those who rely on their services.

I am joined now by the SNP's local Government minister Derek Mackay --

Derek Mackay and by Sarah Boyack, and by the Liberal Democrat's

Willie Rennie. Can I just take one of your ideas,

which is to have no compulsory redundancies in councils? What are

you proposing to cut to pay for that? Or or you simply proposing

that so many people want to leave councils that it will not make any

difference whether you have redundancies or not? There is

natural turnover way you can redeploy staff and transform

services without making people Compostela Riddick -- compulsorily

redundant. But it is important we do not throw people on the

scrapheap... But you either have no compulsory redundancies and meaning

fewer people forced to leave councils, because of this policy,

or it is simply massed -- natural wastage. Which one is it? Its his

natural turnover of staff. There will be fewer people working in

local Government. Insuring Milcombe polls are really --... A I am are

you saying... I was looking at your manifesto.

Are you saying this is a great idea that SNP controlled councils will

implement, what are you saying that this is something that somehow the

Scottish Government will require of councils, like the council tax

freeze? No, we are saying no compulsory redundancies. Sarah

Boyack, a good idea? Is it is a problem it made at central

Government level. Last year we lost 13 and a half 1000 jobs -- 13,500

jobs are at local Government level. Local authorities have a huge

squeeze on this year, and they are having to make very tough decisions.

The SNP Government are not helping them. Are you saying that this is a

sham? That all these job losses over the past year, that has just

been natural wastage, all that has been compulsory redundancies?

has been as a result of jobs being lost. We are seeing less teachers...

That does not answer my question. On the job losses, because of

compulsory redundancies, or are they as Derek Mackay was suggesting,

this turnover, and if you do not replace people you get much the

same effect? We are seen jobs not filled, but it is not being done in

a logical way. Councils are having to make hard decisions on things

particularly like care services. We are seeing difficult decisions on

care services, and in Edinburgh for example the council wasted �4

million thinking about privatising their services... Hang on. You

would have to do exactly the same thing. Our point is that local

Government is being dealt a bad deal by the SNP. On the one level

you have a national SNP manifesto saying what will happen, but the

reality is that at local level on things such as budget cuts,... We

would have looked at a hall of the Scottish Government budget, and

tried to prioritise protecting vulnerable people... So what would

you have cut? You have to look at the Budget as a whole. So you do

not have any answers? We cannot be right the budget. Yes you can. I

understand there is an election five years off, but you have just

had the Budget - of course you can tell me. Let me get -- give you an

example of new money going into local Government. The whole area of

renewable energy and local energy. That has a massive capacity to

increase funds at local level, and not something that has been picked

up in Birmingham for example. There are now councils in in mass scale

looking at that. In Glasgow we have renewable energy being recycled to

reduce pensioners'' fuel bills. So there are practical things that can

be done. Willie Rennie, the point that was made in the film there is

that compulsory redundancy, be said they would not force councils to do

this, but it is like the council tax freeze. Do you think local

authorities are being undermined as a result of this? The SNP like to

control everything from Edinburgh. This is an egg -- SNP proposal at

local level. But actually what I think we need to be looking at,

because this is a small part of the overall decisions. The Liberal

Democrat councils have already made significant savings in the last

five years. Up in Highland there has been a �4 million worth of

savings. In Aberdeen be brought the council back from financial brink.

In Edinburgh we have got the reserves - up to about �12 million

from �300,000 when Labour left it. So we have already done the

efficiency savings at in local level. But compulsory redundancies

stuff, it sounds attractive, and that is how the SNP talk about it.

What are you proposing to cut? are looking at demand management.

Even though finances are tight, the demand especially from older people,

is considerable. We used -- we need to try and reduce that demand. It

doesn't sound as if it will make big savings, but it does. I have

seen several examples of where they can control the demand and make

sure that communities, families and others take greater responsibility

where they can, to help people so the burden does not fall upon the

councils. These are difficult decisions, but at a local level we

That sounds like a long-winded way of saying you will just dump it on

the local communities. No, this is local leadership

working, finding out what people can do for themselves. It is better

if people can do things themselves, if communities can support people

who live within them. That is a much better way of running services

and provide a better quality service. If we are going to keep

the quality of the services at the current standard, we will have to

try and get people to look after themselves a lot more. Pretending

we can carry on as we are is just a con.

That goes into the next question, which is the idea of wiping the

slate -- wiping the slate clean and starting again. Just saying, what

is it councils ought to be providing, and what they provide

now, with the reduced amount of money?

Beyond any council's statutory responsibilities, each council

cannot engage with their local communities and find out what is

important to them. There can be a discussion as to what the

priorities are and what services can be provided. We will need to

innovate and if I did new finance, so some things have to be provided

differently. The word statutory, Sarah, is quite

important, isn't it? To a lot of people, it makes no different who

runs the council. They have got to keep schools running, that takes up

a lot of the Budget, the Actual discretionary spending their areas

that can differ depending on whether it is the Liberal Democrat

or SNP or Tory is pretty small. I think there is a point at which

local communities, if they are consulted, will actually express

priorities, at one other things we have been doing his consulting with

local people, they know that there is not given it amounts of money...

All councils say they consult with local people. That means nothing.

It has been interesting looking at people's transport priorities in

Edinburgh, and we have got an idea of devolving the Budget on a

partnership basis to involve local communities in those decisions, so

there is a bit more local accountability and one of the

things we do need to do is look at how local communities are involved

in a process. Statutory services are key, but are things like

support services, at one of the things we need to see is to look at

local health budgets and local authority budgets being more

efficiently managed together. Briefly, Willie Rennie, you worry

Liberal Democrat, are there functions that the Scottish

government does that you think should be sent to councils?

Very much so. We should allow councils to function in their own

way. What would you take away from the

Scottish government and give to councils?

To give credit to the SNP, they did take away a lot of target and

controls, some of the issues, for instance, around agreements

bitterly looked at to see that the councils have got maximum

flexibility. -- needs to be looked We have a polished 99% of ring-

fenced funding around local government. -- abolished.

The House of Commons Culture and Media Select Committee described

Rupert Murdoch as not being a fit and proper person to run a company.

This was a political split, with the Liberal Democrat siding with

Labour. There was not an SNP member on that committee, it may have been

interesting if there was. It also feature the Tommy Sheridan case and

the phone Egging -- phone hacking of at least one the SNP MP.

It is a story that has been hitting the headlines for almost eight

years, the battle between Tommy Sheridan and News International

began with his front page splash in 2004. He sued for defamation and it

will up -- and one, but was later jailed for perjury. But Tom Watson

repeated his belief that this story was not over.

So Tommy Sheridan loft -- lost his liberty on a majority verdict of a

jury that was not in the admission of all the facts. I believe this is

not sound. If Rupert Murdoch is really sorry, he will order an

urgent review of the information his company provided to the jury.

The damning conclusion surprised many observers, but not Tommy

Sheridan. Ben 4G important conclusions, one

is that Mr Murdoch is not fit to run a fish-and-chip shop, never

mind a media empire, and second, but the conviction against me was

based on incomplete evidence and life is. It is an unsafe conviction.

-- life is. Whether or not we have heard the

last, evidence presented did lead to Strathclyde police launching

their own investigation. Its officers are looking into

allegations that the number of people in Scotland may have had

their phones hacked. Just weeks ago, a man had his two children were

contacted by police because they may have been a victims of phone

hacking. Strathclyde police have been in touch with many more people

in Scotland, but will not confirm who.

Now that we know that the former First Minister in Scotland was a

target, I am writing to Alex Salmond to recommend he set up an

inquiry by the Scottish parliament into how wide wide MSPs were

targeted. -- how and why. But Alex Salmond criticised the

inquiry. He said the question of who is a fit person to run a news

organisation it should be judged by independent authorities like Lord

Leveson and Ofcom. But if police officers want more information,

they could do worse than go to the National Theatre of Scotland, and a

production which is based on verbatim interviews with Scottish

journalists. One of the scenes played out here

is based on an interview with Jack Irvine, the former editor of the

Sun. He admits making cash payments for stories. He says it was

commonplace, they paid social workers, soldiers and even senior

policeman. There have been plenty of hints and suggestions, but so

far, the full story of how the media operate in Scotland is yet

one fault. Looking at the front pages, and the Scotsman has Rupert

Murdoch on the front page. The the Herald, US tycoon on the verge of

winning takeover battle. At the bottom, a secret mission in Libya.