Question reference: S6W-09771
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 15 July 2022
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Current status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 5 August 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the Minister for Transport has had with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy regarding long term budgets for local roads maintenance to enable planned asset management and achieve increased value for money.
Answer
The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places the statutory responsibility for local roads improvement, maintenance and repair with local road authorities.
The vast majority of funding to local authorities from the Scottish Government is provided via a block grant and we do not stipulate how local authorities should utilise their individual allocations. It is therefore the responsibility of each local authority to manage their own budget and to allocate the 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.
The 2022-23 Local Government Settlement of almost £12.7 billion is both fair and affordable, under the most challenging of circumstances.
Following publication of the Audit Scotland report on Maintaining Scotland’s Roads in 2016, the National Roads Maintenance Review undertaken by Transport Scotland, SCOTS (the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland), CoSLA and SoLACE (the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives) considered the recommendation for long term funding settlements for local road maintenance. However, the conclusion was that this would lead to further ring fencing of local authority funding settlements which would impact on local accountability and decision making, and was not taken forward.