Current status: Answered by Shona Robison on 16 August 2024
To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to ensure that small towns and villages receive proportional investment in their amenities as their populations grow.
A needs based distribution methodology based on factors, including population, is used to distribute the funding available for Local Government at a council level and is agreed with COSLA on behalf of all 32 local authorities each year.
As independent corporate bodies, it is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.
As part of the Population Balance pillar of the Scottish Government's Population Strategy, we are working with COSLA and a range of local authorities facing population growth to understand approaches to addressing this distinct challenge. It is intended that this will be considered at a future meeting of the Ministerial Population Taskforce.