Scotland’s Council Leaders today (Friday) expressed disappointment that the agreed Budget deal only makes good the underfunding of new and existing commitments required by the Scottish Government and does nothing to address inflationary or demand pressures.

It also fails to make any restoration of the significant cuts to Local Government core funding in previous years.

Leaders agreed that, as such, the settlement represents a 2% or £205million cut in real terms in revenue funding for Local Government.

Council Leaders instructed COSLA to continue to lobby the Scottish Government and opposition parties strongly for the additional 2% funding for inflationary pressures and 3% for restoration of previous funding cuts and for restoration of the £117million cut to the capital allocation.