He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune: Exploring asymmetry and imbalance in Scottish Local Government finance since 1974

Forsyth, Lewis (2025) He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune: Exploring asymmetry and imbalance in Scottish Local Government finance since 1974. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Local government finance (LGF) and its reform has become an intractable, complex problem in the UK. The system has long attracted criticism and, despite repeated efforts to enhance fairness, accountability, and efficiency, faces many of the same challenges today that it faced 50 years ago. Often reforms have failed to address core funding problems, instead serving to consolidate central government control and limiting local government’s fiscal and policy autonomy. This has also been true in Scotland before and since devolution and has been in spite of a rhetoric which often espouses the benefits of localism, decentralisation, and subsidiarity. To understand this research problem, the thesis offers a diagnosis of the nature and consequences of restricted financial freedom for Scottish local government, with specific reference to local domestic tax policy (LDTP) since 1974. In doing so, it explores why in spite of continuous efforts over the past five decades reform has been thus far unsuccessful in addressing many of the core problems. This research adopts a historical institutionalist approach to understand the processes and institutions involved in local government finance and its reform across three case studies. These case studies represent three critical junctures in LDTP reform which have emerged from a review of the literature. They are:

-1975-77: The ‘Layfield Committee’, its report, and the reception to its proposals

-1989-91: The Poll Tax, its collapse, and the design of the Council Tax

-2014-16: The Commission on Local Tax Reform, its report, and reception

This thesis employs archival research and elite interviews to explore the influences on the policy process and the forces stymying reform. The research uncovered several key findings that have implications for both local government finance reform and public policy more broadly. These findings relate to the nature of multi-level governance reform (in terms of both structural and constitutional considerations), the role of formal and informal relationships between central and local government, and an apparent "institutional gravity" that can limit departures from long-established practices. By exploring these themes, this research underscores the value of looking into the past to inform our understanding of present-day challenges.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > HJ Public Finance; J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN1187 Scotland; J Political Science > JS Local government Municipal government
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Urban Studies & Social Policy
• Supervisor's Name: Gibb, Professor Ken and Mitchell, Professor James
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85276
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 01 Jul 2025 13:00
• Last Modified: 01 Sep 2026 15:22
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85276
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85276