Submitted by Bill Fernie
17th August 2026
Andy Burnham has certainly been making his presence felt so I have ben giving some thought to how we could look at things more from a costof living view for residents of our region.
Since becoming Prime Minister, his early approach has been to concentrate on the things that people notice in their everyday lives the cost of electricity, bus fares and some of the irritating practices that make household finances feel even tighter. His government has announced the removal of a tax from domestic electricity bills and a £2 cap on single bus fares in England from January.
Whether you agree with everything Burnham does is another matter but I think there is an idea behind his approach that Highland Council should consider.
What if the Council made reducing the cost of living for Highland households one of the objectives of its budget? Not through grand promises or expensive giveaways but instead, by looking carefully at what it spends, what it charges and what it could do differently.
Start with the household, not the Council as local government budgets tend to be discussed from the Council's perspective.
Yes there is a budget gap, and there are pressures on services. There are pay increases and there are rising energy and contract costs. And the a capital programme that alwys gts more expensive.
Then comes the inevitable question as to how much more should council tax be increased?
But perhaps we should turn that around and ask what life looks like from the other side of the council tax bill.
A household has to find money for council tax, rent or mortgage, electricity, heating, fuel, food, insurance, transport and everything else not to mention children.
For many people, there isn't much left at the end of the month so perhaps Highland Council should ask itself: "What can we do to leave more money in people's pockets."
Highland has already increased council tax so the question isn't theoretical.
For 2026/27, Highland Council increased council tax by 7%. Five percentage points were intended to support core services, while another two percentage points were earmarked for capital investment through the Highland Investment Plan.
The Council's total budget is almost £868 million, including more than £183 million of council-tax income.
The Council is also facing a substantial financial challenge. Its 2026/27 budget includes a package of £61 million of savings, income generation and financial flexibilities intended to help close a £46.7 million budget gap over three years.
So I am not suggesting that there is a pot of spare money sitting around waiting to be distributed.
There isn't. The question is different.
Could some spending be changed, delayed or stopped so that some of the pressure on households could be reduced?
What about council tax? and this is probably the most obvious place to start as it is feature hugely in personal budgets.
Suppose Highland Council decided that next year's budget should have a specific objective like "No increase in council tax unless the Council can demonstrate that the money is essential."
That would force a different nd difficult conversation. But perhaps it would focus minds to find even bettr solutions. Every proposed item of expenditure would have to compete with the possibility of reducing the bill for households.
I'm not suggesting that essential services should be cut to achieve a headline grabbing council tax reduction. Nobody wants fewer care services for elderly people or children. Nobody wants roads to deteriorate further. Nobody wants rubbish piling up.
But councils spend a huge amount of money, and there must inevitably be things that can be delayed, redesigned or delivered more cheaply.
The Council has already identified £61 million of savings and other measures.
So the question becomes could some of those savings be passed directly to households rather than being absorbed entirely into new spending?
Then there is council housing and this is more complicated. Council housing operates through the Housing Revenue Account, which is separate from the Council's general fund. Rent doesn't simply go into the same pot as council tax to finance other council services. Rents fund housing services, including repairs, maintenance and new homes so it is ot an easy one. But that doesn't mean rent policy shouldn't be part of a cost-of-living discussion.
Highland Council agreed an 8% rent increase for 2026/27 and the Council has a strong argument for this. Its housing stock needs investment, new homes need to be built, existing properties need maintenance and borrowing has to be repaid.
Indeed, Highland's long-term rent strategy was designed around maintaining and improving existing houses and increasing the supply of affordable housing.
But there is another side to the argument. If households are struggling, could the Council find a way of restraining rent increases without undermining the long-term housing programme?
Perhaps by changing the timing of some investment or through greater efficiency, by reducing borrowing costs, by building more homes and increasing the rental income base. It is worth investigating rather than simply assuming that rents must rise by a particular percentage every year.
Housing may actually be the biggest long-term answer and this is where I think Highland needs to think beyond short-term help.
There is a temptation whenever people struggle with housing costs to offer grants or financial assistance but if there aren't enough houses, additional money can simply chase the same limited supply.
The Council's own Highland Housing Challenge says the region needs to double the number of homes over the next decade across all tenures.
And Highland currently has a £40 million affordable housing building programme for 2026/27, backed by HRA borrowing and government grant. That may ultimately be a much more powerful cost-of-living policy than a temporary grant.
Build more houses. Increase supply. Reduce pressure on rents. Give workers somewhere they can afford to live. That is a structural solution.
Transport is where Highland needs its own Burnham approach and this is where copying Burnham's £2 bus fare policy would become rather absurd. A £2 bus fare may be useful in a large urban area where buses run frequently. But what about somebody living in Caithness or rural Sutherland? The problem isn't necessarily that the bus costs too much. The problem may be that there isn't a bus when you need one.
And if you have to drive 30 or 40 miles to work, the cost of fuel becomes much more significant than a bus fare. So Highland needs to think differently with possible changes - Could community transport be expanded? Could council-supported routes be redesigned? Could demand-responsive transport become more widely available?
Could Council owned or Council supported bus operations provide services where commercial operators cannot? Highland coucnil has made a start in som aras but could it be pushed forward faster
The Council has already been exploring innovative approaches to transport and has continued to examine opportunities following its acquisition of D&E Coaches. That could become part of a distinctly Highland version of the Burnham approach.
Parking charges are another possibility
There are lots of small costs that individually don't look particularly important.
But they add up.
But I do think it could borrow one idea from him. Start looking at government from the point of view of the household.
Instead of asking only what the Council needs to spend, ask what residents need to pay. And then work backwards.
If a choice has to be made between spending another £1 million on something desirable and saving £1 million for Highland households, perhaps councillors should at least have that conversation openly.
Because for someone struggling to pay the electricity bill, fill the car with fuel or keep the shopping bill under control, another announcement about a council programme can seem rather remote.
A few pounds saved every week is much more real.
Perhaps that is the real lesson from Andy Burnham.
Don't just tell people that you understand the cost-of-living problem. Find things government can actually do to make their lives a little cheaper.
And in the Highlands, where distance, housing shortages, energy costs and transport can make everyday life particularly expensive, there is certainly no shortage of things to look at.
The Council Will Say "We've Been Doing This for Years"
I acknowledge the Redesign Board that I once sat on, has £217m of savings and the current transformation programme.
But reducing the Council's costs and reducing the cost of living for residents are not necessarily the same thing.
You can see what the Redesign board did at
https://www.highland.gov.uk/downloads/download/304/redesign-of-the-highland-council
And we should acknowledge that the staff of the council often come up with suggestions to be more efficient. Councillors can ask questions but the experts in delivery of services are the staff.
If you think it easy then there is a bi-election coming up very soon in East Caithness - will you stand?
Bill Fernie
Note
Bill Fernie was a Highland coucillor for 14 years up to 2017.