Moray losing £168 of funds per person
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A councillor has stated that Moray is losing out on the equivalent of £168 of central funding for each every person who lives here.
Cllr Sandy Keith (Elgin North, Labour) says that, according to the local authority' own accounts, Moray receives only £1968 per head, compared to an average across Scotland of £2136.
Speaking at yesterday's meeting of the full council, he called for a letter to be sent to the Scottish Government asking it to review the funding formula for local authorities.
Cllr Keith said: "We are not being funded appropriately.
"If Moray was funded up to the national average we would be £15.9million better off.
"Instead, we are looking at having to make £20million of savings over the next couple of years."
Cllr Keith added his opinion that Moray was being "dumped on".
He continued: "We need to act cohesively and show leadership on this matter."
Lorraine Paisey, the council's head of finance, pointed out that the Scottish Government gives the money to COSLA (the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities), which is made up all of 32 of the country's local authorities.
She stated it was this organisation which decides how the government's cash is divided, and the mathematical formula used was far more complex than just splitting by population size.
Ms Paisey said: "Asking the Scottish Government to override that system would be asking the impossible, I believe."
Cllr Graham Leadbitter (Elgin South, SNP) said: "It's COSLA which implements the methodology, not the Scottish Government.
"I'm wary of going to the Scottish Government and saying, 'we can't organise ourselves, we want you to do it for us'.
"We seriously risk undermining our own independent powers of decision-making.
"I can't agree to do that. I think it would be a foolish thing to do.
"That said, I don't disagree that the distribution is unhelpful to Moray.
"Although it's not easy because if you're given more then someone else loses out – that's the reality
Cllr Leadbitter, a former co-leader of the council, added: "I think the most constructive thing to do would be to go to COSLA and our colleagues in our own parties and highlight exactly which aspects of the distribution are causing the problems.
"To go to them with a simple 'this isn't good enough' - that's just not going to work. It's just going to get kicked back to us."
