Regional councils created huge spending differentials between rural and urban areas

THERE are times when delaying a response to a letter published in a newspaper is advisable, especially if its initial effect has been to induce apoplexy. In this case that delay refers to the letter you published from John K Houston (Letters, May 27).

Mr Houston assumes that every council in Scotland has the same senior staff structure and this is one of the causes of excessive expenditure. I will not speak for any other council, but in terms of Perth and Kinross his assertions are inaccurate. Our executive officer team consists of only four people. These are our chief executive and three executive directors, one of housing and community care, one of education and children’s services and one of the environment service.

Thus, in terms of Mr Houston’s inaccurate assertion, we do not have directors of finance, social work, roads, education on its own, legal and administrative matters or parks, museums and the like. In our council all those matters are covered by one of the three executive directors or the chief executive. There is also no discrete post of depute chief executive. This is covered by one of the executive directors on a rotating basis. It is no surprise, therefore that they do have depute directors, each of whom deals with elements of the service they run. As to “plush offices”, they are no different to any other offices in our buildings and while they do have reserved parking spaces adjacent to the building they work in, that is the only viable means of ensuring they can attend emergency meetings promptly whenever required, be that day or night.

This structure was the result of cross-party agreement some years ago to minimise our costs in this area of operations, as much as we reasonably could without serious side-effects.

I can assure anyone who thinks along the lines Mr Houston evinces for restructuring local government, that if there were any suggestion of returning to a “regional” model the reaction in Perth and Kinross would be one of unrestrained fury. Having been a member of Tayside Regional Council for the last two years of its life, and analysed its expenditure profiles, I know why. The imbalance between the rural areas and the main urban conurbation in terms of capital expenditure in particular was ridiculous. Nobody in Perth and Kinross would countenance returning to such an arrangement. Further, given the reduction in senior officer posts, as described above, we are a great deal more efficient than any “regional” administration could ever be. Alan Grant, SNP councillor and deputy leader, Perth and Kinross Council, 2 High Street, Perth. JEAN McFadden (Letters, May 27) rightly emphasises the difficulties associated with Scotland’s having so many local councils. Integrating the provision of adequate services remains cumbersome, and is not helped by the Scottish Parliament being a tad authoritarian.

Freezing the council tax did not help with local financial allocation decisions, and Holyrood regularly overrules local wind farm decisions. One would have more confidence that a separate Scotland would really be more democratic if the reins on local councils were certain to be loosened. Joe Darby, Glenburn, St Martins Mill, Cullicudden, Dingwall.