More cuts and more straightjackets for local government.

Today I was at a Scrutiny and Audit Committee meeting where it was clear that over £400,000 of this years budget cuts would not be achieved ... And because some of this was primary school closures with the saving in futures years being over £2 million next year and a further £1 million in subsequent years, the consequences for future years are significant. Apart from the lack of a robust educational case for the planned closures, the stopper was the Scottish Government deciding that no rural primaries would be allowed to close.

Now John Swinney is saying that councils will again not be allowed to raise council tax ...

With the Council Tax freeze, councillors were left to decide what to cut. When ministers decided that some areas for saving were off limits, they then directed the cuts to other areas. And now the cuts will continue deeper than ever.

When I first stood a friend said "remember, Debra, that councils really can only do what government tells them to do and then it is compulsory'. She was only a quarter joking - the freedom to do things for the benefit of the citizen has always been limited.

Now the room to manoeuvre is being limited for as much as the next 5 years.   It's not an attractive prospect for Councillors doing little more than decide where the axe shall fall.  Fred Macauley on Radio Scotland this morning joked that perhaps the current 32 councils should be merged into one.  If the Scottish Government does not increase the independence of councils both in terms of what they are allowed to do and how they raise the funds to do it, then maybe Fred is right.

Scale and management of cuts

the Accounts Commission has called on councils to take urgent and radical action to deal with the financial challenges ahead in their annual report, An overview of local government in Scotland 2009. The reports points to a likely real term drop in the Scottish budget of between seven and 13 per cent between 2009/10 and 2013/14.

Things could be worse - the Conservative Shadow Chancellor George Osbourne now saying the Conservatives will be "tougher than Margaret Thatcher" when it comes to tackling Britain's budget deficit. This will inevitably put more pressure of local government.

The Democratic Independent Group called for an inclusive all-group approach to making the hard decisions that will be needed in the recent budget. The LibDem/Tory administration may regret refusing this approach.

If the LibDem/Conservative administration on Aberdeenshire want all the power, then they can take all the resoponsibility.