A new report has revealed massive differences in the fall in cash per person that Scotland's councils have had to spend in the last five years - with this varying from just £6 in one area to £504 in another.

Independent analysis by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Spice) showed that council funding per person had dropped in all 32 local authority areas over the period 2013-14 to 2018-19.

While the average fall was £148, the figures showed that in Orkney this decreased by just £6 per head. In contrast, the Western Isles saw the largest drop, with funding down by £504 per person.

Argyll and Bute Council had the largest drop of any of the mainland authorities, with funding per head down by £288 over the period.

In Glasgow City Council - Scotland's largest local authority - there was a £233 decrease over the five years, slightly more than the £226 per person drop in Edinburgh City Council.

North Ayrshire had the smallest reduction of all the mainland authorities, with a £36 per person reduction.

However, the report stressed changes to funding per head "represent both changes to population and changes to funding, so should not be attributed solely to one or the other".

Meanwhile, Spice found that council funding is to increase slightly this year after falling by almost £750 million in the last four years.

Scottish Conservatives said the figures showed the SNP had "comprehensively under resourced local government", although ministers argued the report excluded other funding sources

According to the report, real-terms total funding for local authorities fell by 7.1% - or £744.7 million - between 2013-14 and 2017-18.

However, resources are to rise by 0.3% in real terms in the current financial year, with revenue and capital spending for councils amounting to almost £10.7 billion in 2018-19.

Over the period 2013-14 to 2017-18, day-to-day spending for councils fell much faster than for the Scottish Government, with a fall of 7.1% compared to 1.8%.

The report said that the figures for 2017-18 and 2018-19 showed a 0.3% increase for local government spending, compared with a 0.4% reduction in the Scottish Government revenue budget.

"This suggests a reversal in the trend of recent years in which the local government revenue settlement has fallen at a much steeper rate than that of the Scottish Government," Spice said.

A Cosla spokesman said: "There is no doubt that councils have suffered the brunt of cuts in recent years and the simple truth is that Scotland's councils have no room left to manoeuvre in terms of budgets.

"This report backs up both our fair funding for essential services report as well as the improvement service benchmarking report."

Alexander Stewart, Scottish Conservative local government spokesman said: "These figures prove that despite all their protestations, the SNP has comprehensively under-resourced local government.

"As the Scottish Parliament Information Centre has laid bare, the SNP destruction of local government funding has taken place despite their own increasing budget."

He added: "It is now absolutely clear that SNP mismanagement has led to third-world roads, overwhelmed community care and crumbling schools."

Similarly Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie claimed local councils had been "treated as the poor relation for over a decade by the SNP."

He said: "Councils have always been first in line for the chop and the victims of the SNP's obsession with centralisation. The impact can be seen in our schools and other local services."

But a Scottish Government spokesman said: "These figures exclude a number of important, additional funding sources, including £355 million for health and social care and £150 million of funding that is provided outwith the core settlement, but which benefits local government. When those are included, there has been a slight decrease of just 0.8% between 2013 and 2019, compared to a 1.8% cut to the Scottish Government revenue budget over the same period."

He continued: "In 2018/19, our £10.9 billion local settlement government will provide a real terms increase in both revenue and capital, at a time when the Scottish revenue budget faces continued real terms cuts - showing that we have treated local government very fairly in face of those.

"And with local authorities using their powers to increase Council Tax by the maximum allowable 3%, they now have access to an additional £251.9 million for day-to-day spending on local services, compared to 2017-18."