Spice of life

Alison Fullarton’s selective use of Scottish Parliament Information Centre figures on local government finance (Letters, 23 May) forgets that its report excluded a number of additional funding sources, including £355 million for health and social care and £150m funding provided outwith the core settlement, but which benefited local government.

When those are included, there has been a slight decrease of just 0.8 per cent between 2013 and 2019, compared to a 1.8 per cent cut to the Scottish Government revenue budget over the same period.

Also, since the formation of Police Scotland in 2013, local authority expenditure on policing has been much reduced, extra money is going directly to headteachers and only last month a further £40m from the Scottish Government was agreed to deliver early years provision in Edinburgh.

This year’s £10.9 billion local government settlement provided a real terms increase in both revenue and capital funding at a time when the Scottish revenue budget faced continued real terms cuts. Local government provision in Scotland remains miles better than in England where services are much worse despite paying on average an additional £400 a year in council tax.

MARY THOMAS Watson Crescent, Edinburgh