If the road ahead looks pocked with holes for the nation’s drivers, the future appears distinctly bumpy for council tax payers as a whole as well.
An analysis before May’s local elections reveals that Scottish government funding for councils has fallen in real terms under the SNP in the past decade, with roads emerging as one of the biggest losers.
The identified 25 per cent spending cut on roads in real terms since 2010-11 helps account for the dire state of repair of routes throughout the country, with increasing frustration over potholes.
This month it emerged that it would cost at least £1.7 billion to repair the cracks and fissures which have emerged on avenues and carriageways, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic.
The local government benchmarking framework report also points to other areas that have borne the brunt of spending cuts, with Scottish government funding of local authorities down in real terms by 6 per cent in the past decade once non-recurring Covid-related funding is excluded.
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Jack Cousens, head of roads policy for the AA, said: “The condition of roads across Scotland has been poor for some time and they are in desperate need of investment.
“While potholes can be a costly nuisance for drivers, they can be fatal for motorcyclists and cyclists so it is important for basic road safety that roads are as smooth as possible.”
Real-terms spending on culture and leisure fell by 27 per cent, with 83 public libraries closing since 2010, despite a 40 per cent increase in the number of visitors. Arts groups have also struggled to secure adequate funding while there was a 13 per cent fall in spending on environmental services, despite concerns about graffiti and fly-tipping in cities such as Glasgow.
Cosla, the umbrella body for Scotland’s 32 local authorities, which helped compile the analysis, said that the situation had been made worse by the SNP-led government ring-fencing funding for what it believed were critical areas of expenditure, such as education and social work.
In a statement, Cosla said: “While spend in these areas has gone up, less resource overall means it has been at the expense of areas like economic development, roads and transport — all critical in attracting investment, developing businesses, creating jobs and addressing climate change.”
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Miles Briggs, the Conservative MSP, said that the Scottish government had to accept responsibility for cuts that had led to one in eight public libraries shutting its doors, despite growing demand.
He said: “Years of underfunding and increased ring-fencing from the SNP have eroded the ability of councils to deliver the essential local services their communities really need.
“Libraries are not just a place to borrow books, they are at the heart of local communities, and make a real difference to the daily lives of millions of Scots.
“Free, high-quality public libraries are key to addressing so many of Scotland’s most pressing challenges — from the ever-widening attainment gap, to Scotland’s growing digital skills needs, to our cultural recovery from the pandemic.”
Glasgow made international headlines at the end of last year for all the wrong reasons just as the city was about to host the Cop26 climate change conference.
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The GMB union protested that streets were overrun with 1.3 million rats due to underfunding of council cleansing services and that fly-tipping had “gone through the roof” after the imposition of a £35 charge by the city council to collect residents’ furniture and bulky goods.
Now, the union’s cleansing convener Chris Mitchell claims that, just weeks before the local government elections in May, £2 million has been found to clean up the streets and that the £35 charge is being scrapped.
He said: “Suddenly, money has been found to clear things up. I have been complaining about a lack of funding for six years. Come May, these councillors want to get re-elected so cash suddenly appears. It is shocking.”
Glasgow city council said that the £35 scheme would be dropped in future, when people will be charged £5 per item instead.
East Renfrewshire council, which has just announced Scotland’s second-highest council tax increase of 3.5 per cent, is about to enter the second year of charging residents an additional £40 to collect garden waste. There is no legal requirement on Scottish councils to take grass or hedge cuttings.
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The Scottish government said that the 2022-23 local government funding package of almost £12.7 billion provided a cash increase of £1.1 billion, or a real-terms increase of £731.4 million.
It added: “While ring-fenced funding is for increased investment in services like our schools and nurseries, local authorities have autonomy to allocate almost 93 per cent or £11.8 billion of the funding we provide, plus all locally raised income.
“It is the responsibility of individual councils to manage their own budgets and to allocate the financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities.”
