THE argument over under-funding I think is a bit of a red herring.
The distribution formula is a complex one which is based on need and the revenue a council can generate. So, clearly, Aberdeen is a wealthier place than somewhere like Dundee or Glasgow and needs less money from the government.
And if you look a
t what councils are supposed to do, then this seems to me to be a particular Aberdeen problem than one for other councils.
Councils are given an amount of money and have to produce a budget every year which is balanced, or at least can be reasonably expected to balance.
Of course things like, for example, snow in March can cause one-off difficulties, but as long as the council is moving in the right direction and can show that it can balance the budget, then it is doing its job.
My take on what has happened in Aberdeen is simply that for a number of years the council has either overestimated the amount of services it could provide or has failed to deliver the efficiency savings it was supposed to.
In that sense there are other councils in Scotland and the UK which have similar problems, but Aberdeen seems to be the most extreme example I have come across and it seemed to not be capable of running its own affairs.
The full article contains 239 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
