HOW dreadful is it reading Dr Elliot Bulmer and his ilk articulating a case for increased “local democracy” (National confidence starts with pride in your area..., May 3)? [Please note that in the print edition this column was incorrectly attributed to John Drummond]

They claim people from Glasgow to the Western Isles somehow have different needs to be addressed by local politicians. How so?

Apart from the difference in service delivery and with the exception of local planning, don’t we all have the same education, health, infrastructure, licensing needs etc? And in fairness, shouldn’t the cost of that service delivery be met from pan-Scottish taxpaying? Why should people be taxed differently because they live in a particular area?

READ MORE: The independence conversation must consider local democracy

Clearly there is the opportunity to separate administration from decision-making. Scotland is a small country; it doesn’t need, and clearly can’t afford, 32 council mega-structures duplicating council services and administrative processes like HR, payroll, accounting, legal, licensing etc.

Technology brings the opportunity to maximise the cost savings benefit not only to make administration more efficient and affordable but also to potentially improve service delivery and reduce the burden on taxpayers, while offering environmental benefits too.

While local matters like planning should be decided in the community, Dr Bulmer’s plan to increase power across the board to inflated local councils – already poorly subscribed to at elections – won’t necessarily improve matters, just increase the power-play base.

Isn’t it long overdue to discourage career politicians from local government? Time to break the party political structure by making every vote by secret ballot, and banning the political “whipping” of elected officials? To support this, wouldn’t it be better if no elected representative served more than two terms of office, to allow fresh thinking into local authorities?

Scotland’s local authorities have been held back for too long by unelected officials holding sway over elected councillors. They’ve been the string-pullers, and they avoid accountability for failure.

At devolution I hoped for a root-and-branch review of local authorities. Each new administration has ducked the issue. When elected, the new SNP government signed a concordat with Cosla effectively agreeing not to interfere with the structure. Well, after over 20 years of devolution, doesn’t the tree need to be pruned back to encourage a new, leaner and cost-effective structure that works in our interest?

Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

WHAT a succinct and timeous comment from Brian Innes-Will in the Website Comments of May 1.

During Billy Wolfe’s term of office as SNP chairman, Brian Innes-Will was the SNP’s vice-chairman for organisation and was a quiet and very competent holder of that office; he ran a management consultancy from an office in a street off the bottom of Queen Street in Edinburgh, and I remember meeting him there. Brian was in office during the 1979 independence referendum, the one in which Scotland was cheated by the 40% rule, a rule never used anywhere else in the world or at any time.

It needs to be pointed out that the Referendum Bill was a Labour one, a measure put through after the SNP won 11 Westminster seats in 1974; the 40% rule was put through in the name of George Cunningham – a Scot, but the Labour MP for Islington. It was accepted that the architect of the clause was Robin Cook, who was a member of the Labour government of that time, and would jeopardise his position. He did campaign against the referendum. Labour Bill, Labour government, but opposition from Labour MPs.

We did not trust them then, and we still do not trust them. I do no know what Brian did after the referendum, but like many others, myself included, he had to continue with the day job. Being in the SNP was an occupational hazard.

Jim Lynch
Edinburgh

I AM generally impressed by the quality of the reporting in The National, but your article “Teachers hit out over virus marking plans” in Saturday’s edition falls far short.

The article states that, in “a” (ie, one) focus group, “one” submission to the committee was that there was a concern about teachers ranking their pupils to help with grading them. Another comment was from another focus group participant (ie, one – the same one?) that the practice was unacceptable. There were no comments made as to whether this/these participant(s) made any suggests for another way to help their pupils in these unprecedented times.

Fiona Robertson, chief executive of the SQA (presumably as such she has more access to the wider teaching community), stated that the SQA, through their engagement with schools since the new guidance was issued, has received more (positive) feedback from teachers from across a number of schools. Criticism is pointless without suggestions for an alternative way of doing that which is complained about.

Keep up your general quality of reporting, please. Stay safe.

George McKnight
West Calder