By Brian Allison, local government reporter

DUNDEE WILL definitely not have the highest council tax in Scotland and it is virtually certain there will be no increase at all when the figure is set later this month.

City council administration leader Jill Shimi made the announcement yesterday following council tax levels being set by almost all the other Scottish local authorities on Thursday.

In the current financial year Dundee had the second highest council tax behind Glasgow. Dundee’s Band D figure is £1211 and Glasgow’s remains at £1213 after the council there decided on a freeze for the second year in a row.

Aberdeen took over the top spot by pushing its Band D up to £1230 and Stirling went into second place on £1223.

Councillor Shimi said Dundee had decided to wait until February 20 to set the council tax because they wanted to be able to work up until the 11th hour to make sure the lowest possible figure for Dundee could be delivered.

“People have a right to know that we can now guarantee that we will not have the highest council tax in Scotland,” she said.

“I would like to reassure council tax payers that we are doing everything we can to work towards our target, which is a freeze on Dundee’s council tax. I am confident that this will have the support of a majority of the members of the council.”

Labour’s 10 councillors are in a coalition administration with the two Liberal Democrats, giving them 12 out of the 29 seats. The SNP is the largest single party on the council with 11 seats, the Conservatives have five and there is one Independent.

However, the Conservatives have been supporting the administration, though they are not part of the formal power sharing arrangement.

With the Tories’ five votes, the administration can command an overall majority with 17 seats. If Labour, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives all back a freeze on the council tax, as is expected, then it will go through.

Liberal Democrat group leader Fraser Macpherson, who is the council’s finance convener, said “We are working as an administration very hard to keep Dundee’s council tax low and a zero increase is our clear aim.”

SNP group finance spokesman Joe FitzPatrick said they believed it would be possible to freeze Dundee’s council tax for the coming financial year.

But he stressed that the SNP felt the council tax would still be too high, even if there was no increase for 2007/08.

He said an SNP-led Scottish Executive would freeze the council tax throughout Scotland for the next three years before getting rid of it altogether and replacing it with a local income tax.

Conservative Party secretary Councillor Rod Wallace last night applauded Councillor Shimi for her “bravery” in making the announcement of the zero target.

He said, “Jill has very bravely nailed her colours to the mast in stating that,” he said, “and that has to be applauded because it will benefit the people of Dundee.

“We have had discussions with the group and our preferred option was to minimise the increase, in fact for no increase. The bottom line though was that we wouldn’t be party to any loss of services, we were not prepared to put up with that.

“This is some good news for Dundonians after the recent devastating job losses in the city.”