22nd February 2026
As council tax rises once again loom across Scotland, the familiar warnings are rolled out: there is no alternative.
Councils, we are told, must either raise taxes or cut services. Yet this narrative conveniently ignores a deeper and more uncomfortable truth. The public is being asked to pay more to sustain a system riddled with duplication, overlapping agencies, and excessive administrative cost.
If we are serious about protecting communities, the first question should not be how much more can households afford, but why taxpayers are funding multiple bodies doing broadly the same job.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the Highlands and Islands.
Duplication by Design
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) exists to promote economic and community development across the very same geography served by Highland Council.
Both support businesses.
Both fund regeneration. Both engage with communities. Both maintain offices, senior managers, corporate teams, and strategic plans.
This is not collaboration — it is parallel government.
The result is predictable:
Multiple funding streams for the same outcomes
Separate strategies written by separate consultants
Multiple senior leadership teams overseeing similar work
Communities navigating complex, duplicated systems
All of this costs money. And when budgets tighten, it is not bureaucracy that shrinks — it is frontline services and household finances that take the hit.
A Radical but Obvious Reform
A serious reform agenda would ask an unfashionable question: why do we still need separate economic and community development bureaucracies operating in the same places?
Integrating HIE's local functions with council-led economic and community development would not mean abandoning regional expertise. It would mean:
One leadership structure instead of two
One set of back-office services
One local gateway for businesses and communities
A rationalised public office estate
These are not theoretical savings. They are practical, structural efficiencies that reduce overheads rather than services.
Where the Money Is Really Being Wasted
The easiest cuts are always the most damaging - libraries, bus subsidies, youth provision, local grants. But the real cost drivers sit elsewhere.
Senior management and governance
Public bodies accrete layers of leadership over time. Merging functions immediately reduces executive posts, boards, and advisory structures — without a single cut to community-facing work.
Administration and corporate services
HR, finance, procurement, communications — every duplicated system costs money that could instead be supporting local priorities.
Offices and property
Scotland maintains a sprawling public-sector estate, much of it under-used. Rationalisation and disposal would reduce running costs and generate capital receipts are a direct alternative to council tax hikes.
These are system costs, not service costs. Yet they are rarely the focus of reform.
Council Tax: The Wrong Answer to the Wrong Problem
Council tax rises are presented as unavoidable, but they are often the result of structural inefficiency passed down to households. Local government is expected to absorb rising costs while national agencies continue to operate alongside it, funded by the same taxpayers.
By integrating overlapping bodies and devolving real responsibility and budgets to councils, pressure on council tax could be eased without cutting services or increasing inequality.
This would be a shift from a lazy politics of inevitability to a serious politics of reform.
This Is Not Just a Highland Issue
The Highlands and Islands are simply the most visible example. Across Scotland, similar duplication exists between:
National agencies and council regeneration teams
Skills bodies and local employability services
Arms-length organisations and in-house council functions
Every additional structure brings more managers, more buildings, and more running costs. Few bring equivalent value.
The Real Barrier: Institutional Comfort
The reluctance to pursue these reforms has little to do with complexity and much to do with comfort. Structural reform threatens:
Established organisations
Senior posts
Long-standing governance arrangements
But protecting institutions at the expense of taxpayers is not progressive it is evasive.
If the Scottish Government truly believes in efficiency, prevention, and community empowerment, then it must be willing to reform the architecture of the state, not simply manage its decline.
Cut Bureaucracy First
The choice facing Scotland is not between higher taxes and poorer services. It is between reform and repetition.
Continuing to raise council tax while leaving duplicated bureaucracies untouched is a political decision — not an economic necessity. A genuinely radical approach would start where the money is quietly drained away: overlapping management, duplicated agencies, and unnecessary buildings.
If we want to protect communities, we should stop asking them to pay for inefficiency — and start demanding that government finally tackles it.