Reduce the number of local councils

I READ in the press that many local authorities in Scotland are planning more savage financial cuts to services and jobs over the next few years whilst hiking up business rates and council taxes.

Scottish local authorities have been cutting jobs and services year-on-year for a very long time now and there appears to be no signs of this situation changing any time soon.

Yet, the most obvious way to save money is to drastically cut the number of local authorities in Scotland.

At present, Scotland has 32 local authorities, for a very small country that is far too many.

Local authorities have far too many very highly-paid senior employees and far too many political hangers-on. By that I mean “career politicians”, many of whom have never held a proper job in their life or held on to any kind of skilled employment for any great length of time.

In Scotland there are 32 chief executives; 32 directors of social work, 32 directors of education (or equivalent posts); we also have 32 provosts or lord provosts, 32 deputy provosts, 32 council leaders and so on and so forth and all this amounts to an appalling waste of taxpayers’ money.

It’s not just the excessive size of their salaries that irks me, it’s also the grossly inflated expenses claims that many submit.

This is a huge amount of money that could be better spent on frontline jobs and improvements to services.

Our politicians are excessively remunerated for “jobs” that entail no skill, no real physical effort and no business acumen.

And, in the case of the Scottish Government at Holyrood (pictured), it’s not just the politicians who actually win elections who undeservedly financially benefit but some of the “also rans” (ie, listed MSPs), too, who jump on to the gravy-train.

Under the current system it is a mathematical certainty that every Scottish local authority is guaranteed to make a huge financial loss every single year.

Kenneth Brannan.