Common sense is order of the day

SIR, – An academic paper by Sheffield University has suggested that the number of Scottish local authorities should be reduced from 32 to 17 – to save money and increase efficiency.

Just why Sheffield has an interest in Scottish local government is far from clear, but the university goes on to repeat blunders of the past in its paper by saying nothing about a remedy for the contempt Holyrood has shown for councils.

They have ignored what happened when Labour controlled the massive Strathclyde Council and how its representatives were heavy-handed at Cosla when ruling the roost, instead suggesting something very similar with a Greater Glasgow.

Perhaps a weighting adjustment in council Cosla representation didn’t occur to them. They want to leave Moray on its own with an inadequate tax base when it could rejoin Grampian or hitch up to Highland.

Holyrood’s ineptitude in introducing the poorly funded “Curriculum for Excellence” and wanting to test kids barely into school speaks volumes.

Long years of a centralising agenda that has crippled the police and emergency services scarcely needs revisiting.

A rather obvious requirement is for local authorities to have adequate resources and a revising role in what goes through Holyrood to come out the other end. This would inject some practical common sense into decision making and seems a logical way to get bottom up decisions that we can all live with. Sam Coull, Lendrum Terrace, Boddam, Peterhead