Who Gets What and Why?

I heard from a reader in North Lanarkshire the other day - who wanted to let me know how angry she is at the council's plans to get rid of 121 classroom assistant posts - vital jobs that help young children, often with special needs, to achieve and develop at school.

Now I agree with the reader - because like every other council in Scotland - North Lanarkshire's budget doubled during the 10 year period between 1997 and 2007.

But you can bet your bottom dollar that spending of front-line council services didn't double during that decade - so why such a vital service should be singled out for cuts is beyond me.

My suspicion is that council budgets in some areas have ballooned out of control - but as the Accounts Commission (the public spending watchdog) said in a recent report - Scotland's councils are not good at explaining their spending choices.

Now I would hazard a guess North Lanarkshire's payroll (what it spends on wages and salaries) has increased significantly over the past 10 years or so - but I doubt that this is true in the areas that provide vital front-line services - in care and education, for example. 

I suspect that the proportion of the councils's budget spent on middle and senior management - on back office staff - has increased by much more than the money spent on workers providing  direct services to local people - whether in schools or elsewhere.

Without this information - without knowing how money has actually been spent over the past 10 years - on which budgets have increased and why - the whole process of making of making cuts and prioritising future spending becomes little more than a lottery.

Because those with the ear of the council leadership may find themselves unscathed - while those with a strong argument but poor connections at the top - may find themselves up for the chop.

So I hope that North Lanarkshire - and other councils - will think again about their strategies for protecting front-line services - this is not the first time councils have been in this position - yet they still can't conduct a well informed public debate.

Why should that be?

Classroom assistants have been one of the great successes and innovations of the past 15 years - young people who once struggled to learn now have the help and support they need - to get the best out of their education.

And that's worth fighting for - especially if a council can't explain its spending priorities, which means explaining who gets what and why.