Councils must find savings from areas other than reductions in staffing if they are to continue balancing their books in the future, a report has found.
Local authorities will be required to make "substantial savings" over the next four years, with choices on how to address funding gaps becoming increasingly difficult, Audit Scotland said.
Its report for the Accounts Commission on an overview of local government in 2014 said that so far, savings have been made mainly by cutting staff numbers - but this measure is not sustainable in the longer term.
The financial position of Scotland's 32 councils, who collectively spent almost £21 billion in 2013, has also highlighted the need for "strong political and managerial leadership".
The report identified "heightened tensions" in some council chambers which is "leading to strained working relationships".
Problems were identified at Argyll and Bute, Falkirk and Aberdeen.
Such tensions threaten effective leadership, and the council's ability to do business effectively and achieve best value for services, the report said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article