The SNP leader in Fife has laid into Scotland’s public spending watchdog for wasting time on reporting the “blinding obvious” challenges facing councils.
David Alexander, who is Fife Council’s co-leader, said an Audit Scotland report on local authority finances ignored the “root cause” of the cash squeeze.
The Accounts Commission study found the financial situation at councils is becoming “increasingly critical”, which the authors linked with a decline in public satisfaction at services such as bin collection and schools.
Mr Alexander said: “Why spend so much time and effort on telling us the blinding obvious and why ignore the root cause of the problem in the first place?”
He blamed the financial struggle at councils on reduced funding from Westminster, forcing the Scottish Government to tighten the purse strings for local government.
The Tories say the block grant from London, which includes cash for day-to-day spending as well as infrastructure projects, is to go up between 2016-17 to 2019-20.
