Time could be up for Edinburgh’s creaking minority Labour administration as the horse-trading over the City of Edinburgh’s Council’s budget come to a head this week, writes Herald columnist and former Edinburgh councillor John McLellan

It’s budget time for Edinburgh’s beleaguered Labour administration, but it could be one which affects councillors’ domestic finances as much as those of the city council.

The writing was on the wall in large yellow letters last week when the Lib Dem group teamed up with the SNP to vote down the administration proposals for spending the Tourist Tax revenue stream expected to flow from the summer, and this coming Thursday the whole budget for 2026-27 needs to be agreed.

Under the arrangements which have kept the fractious minority Labour group in notional control since 2022, their proposals would normally expect to scrape through with some Lib Dem and Conservative amendments, but after last week it appeared that all bets were off.

If the Labour budget was to fall, then by rights it should signal the end of its tenure and with it the special responsibility repayments most of their councillors receive for convening committees. The biggest loser would be Jane Meagher, but she might well be happy to trade her £71,519 council leader’s salary for a much quieter life, but if she lost the group leadership, it could amount to a cut of around £46,000.

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The arithmetic just about works for a new SNP-Lib Dem arrangement, with 17 Nationalists and 14 Liberals falling just one short of an overall majority, leaving  Labour (11), Greens (11) and the Conservatives (10) to vie for influence to get a budget over the line.

The scales fell from some of the Conservative group’s eyes after last week, having been under the misapprehension that voting for the rehabilitation of shamed ex-Labour leader Cammy Day to keep Labour in office was the only way to keep the SNP out, not factoring in the Lib Dem capacity for cold calculation. At long last there is unanimity that having eaten their lunch, the Lib Dems are now dressing for dinner with the Conservatives on the menu.

Much depends on how the budget horse-trading develops, but with the Lib Dems having backed the SNP budget at Holyrood, and the senior Lib Dem councillor Kevin Lang running Scottish leader Alex Cole Hamilton’s re-election campaign in Edinburgh Western, a deal could be done if necessary.

But horse-trading requires different steeds and from the parties’ budget proposals published on Wednesday, they owe more to the cloning of Dolly the Sheep than the Appleby Horse Fair.  The Lib Dems, Labour and SNP all propose a five per cent Council Tax increase, and a seven per cent hike in council house rents because the housing budget is still catching up from the rent freeze during Covid.  

The differing amounts allocated to other services are relatively small change in a total budget of £1.5 billion and there is therefore plenty of room for  negotiation and compromise, but there is still the potential for division if the SNP remains determined to bring down the Labour administration after Cammy Day’s appointment to the NHS Lothian board was blocked.

If the Nationalists and Labour can’t strike a deal, then the administration will need Conservative support to pass a budget and survive. The Tories agree council house rents should rise by seven per cent, largely because around 80 per cent of tenants are on housing benefit and unaffected, but are going for a 2.5 per cent Council Tax rise. Compare that to the Conservative-run Scottish Borders Council where the Tory group must have forgotten which party they represent by backing an astonishing 8.5 per cent grab.  The red line for Edinburgh Conservative leader Iain Whyte is a lower Council Tax settlement and more focus on efficiencies, which could be too much for both Labour and the Lib Dems to swallow. Then all  bets really would be off.  

There is always the Greens, but they want a six per cent Council Tax rise to keep rent rises to five per cent, effectively taking more from householders to subsidise the government, and unlikely to find favour with either the Lib Dems or Labour.

The phone calls began as soon as the amendments appeared on Wednesday and the negotiations are likely to go down to the wire before next Thursday’s meeting, but over sums the public won’t notice. My guess is the SNP will find a pretext to reject Labour’s proposals and the Conservatives will not support any budget unless the Council Tax increase is limited to 4.5 per cent at most, with which neither the Lib Dems nor Labour are likely to agree.

But a budget must be passed and if the Conservatives abstain and the Lib Dems want to retain influence, the Labour administration will be history.

Environmental campaigners were celebrating after a planning application for a data centre in Edinburgh Park was rejected earlier this month, but it might not be the landmark victory they claim.

Given fears about a possible drain on nearby domestic electricity and water supplies, it was a mistake for both the applicants and council officers to believe an Environmental Impact Assessment report was unnecessary. But it was also ill-advised to imagine a residential development surrounding a fenced-off data centre would pass muster when it came to place-making in a site designated for integrated mixed use.   

Although not a planning consideration, there is a suspicion this was an opportunistic and speculative application to get ahead of the wave of data centre plans and not a genuine bid to establish new infrastructure in a city location.

The plan by data centre specialists Apatura for a similar facility near Heriot-Watt University is definitely serious, but will undoubtedly encounter similar concerns about power drains and outages and some work will be needed if it’s not to go the same way.

Secure, high-quality data storage at scale is an absolute necessity for the new economy, but if city locations are too problematic, where do they go?

Like another application for a vacant RBS site, for a residential and student development in the New Town, snubbing an officer recommendation to approve a plan paves the way for an appeal to the Scottish Government.

John McLellan is a former Edinburgh Evening News and Scotsman editor, now director of the Scottish news publishing trade association, Newsbrands Scotland. Brought up in Glasgow, McLellan has lived and worked in Edinburgh for over 30 years, and was a City of Edinburgh councillor for the Scottish Conservatives from 2017-22.

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