The people have spoken, or at least some of them have.

The turnout for the council elections, although varied across the country, was disappointing. After all, this was the first time that the local government vote has been held on its own, without the cross-contamination of a Scottish Parliament poll. Although it has almost reached 40%, a pass in my university days, it could and should have been much higher.

It should have been a chance to shine, an opportunity for increased engagement with the electorate, or rather the 32 electorates across the country, especially given the impact which each council, big or small, is about to have on our lives. As we enter a period of budgetary restraint, the first real challenge which Scotland's councils have faced since they were created in 1996, it was more important than ever to participate.

Obviously, there are parts of the country where turnout was respectably over the 50% mark, but also areas where it was about half of that. Some have already argued that this was a direct result of voter apathy, but I certainly didn't detect that when I visited our seven cities over the past week. Taking the political temperature on a tour around the country, I found a large number of people who had taken the democratic decision to abstain, and many others just waiting to be wooed.

Disengagement, yes. Apathy, no. This election has simply continued the longrunning trend of movement away from the political parties and this is a message which they must all start to heed. As our newly-elected councillors get under way with the process of putting political coalitions together, a decent analysis of the results would be a good place to start.

It is possible, with the level of election data available, to accurately determine what the collective democratic will of each local electorate has been, once the parties have stopped preening themselves over their individual performances. The two tribes of Scottish politics can rightly lay claim to a level of success, but it is the detailed messages of the electorate that now need to be deciphered as talks get under way to create coalitions in most of Scotland's councils.

The LibDems, for instance, were punished not only for their role in taking tough decisions as part of the UK Coalition Government but also, and this is the more interesting issue, given a roasting by local electorates on local issues. This really was a local election.

In Aberdeen, where the very well-respected chair of the planning committee and former leader of the council, Kate Dean, was beaten and, of course, in Edinburgh where council leader Jenny Dawe's political career was terminated by an angry electorate, local issues were the motivating factor.

Although the LibDems will be feeling very sore this weekend, the other parties can take no comfort from their opponents' political punishment, because for each and every one of those new administrations, tough decisions await.

This time, for the first time in a political generation, hard choices must be taken on the shape, nature and extent of the very public services that these local electorates have so clearly demonstrated matter so dearly to them. Whether it was cutting the budget in Aberdeen in response to crisis or growing it in Edinburgh to fund the controversial trams project, local electorates engaged and made their voices heard, loud and clear.

This democratic dilemma, how to carry public support while cutting budgets, simply can't be ignored.

Ross Martin is policy director at the Centre for Scottish Public Policy