Letter: Care over cuts

Public provision of services and benefits has always been based on a mix of universal provision and means-testing. Cosla chief executive Rory Mair (your report, 21 June) can't be blamed for trying to look at the matter in a fresh way because that, after all, is part of his job.

But he has raised the spectre of public bodies simply trying to meet the needs of the very poorest. This is wrong on a number of counts and Allan Massie (Perspective, 22 June) alluded to them.

It is important that people on middle incomes feel they have a stake in public services from transport to care, from health to education. It may be an unpalatable issue to raise, but the least well off are often the very people least prepared or able to argue their case.

Means-testing can put people on the defensive, worrying about more and more intrusion into their private lives. It often requires form-filling, enough to deter even the most vigilant claimant from pursuing a benefit. It has a stigma born of experiences in the inter-war period but also from the operation of the modern welfare state. This is a recipe for reduced quality.

The thrust of public policy has to be on reducing spending by improved administration and systems. The case for reducing front-line services, where it exists, must not be based on income. Even then an assessment ought to be made of how any change can have a wider impact.

Reducing access to the bus pass, for example, can have all sorts of implications if it reduces the mobility of the over-60s, prompts more car journeys and makes inter-city journeys less frequent. Increased demand for a service should always trigger a review of systems and not an onslaught on the whole edifice of public services.

Bob Taylor

Shiel Court

Glenrothes, Fife

David K Allan (Letters, 22 June) may not be aware that there was a call two or three years ago for a reduction in the number of councils in Scotland.

While many people agreed that the number of councils should indeed be cut, they then went on to say they wanted "their own" council back, ie the pre-1975 system, when Scotland had 37 county councils and hundreds of burgh councils. It appears that people welcome the prospect of a reduction in the number of councils, or of MPs for that matter, in theory, but as soon as it is suggested that their particular local authority area or constituency is merged with another, the support plummets.

There is a perception of a loss of control in a bigger entity because the centre has moved further away, hence the rejection in the early 1990s of the proposal that the new unitary system should consist of only nine councils, based upon the existing regions.Regional councils such as Strathclyde and Lothian were perceived as too big and pleased nobody, with inhabitants of smaller settlements considering that the main towns or cities swallowed up everything, and the residents of the large settlements feeling that the smaller places were a burden on them and diluted their identity.

I would be surprised if many of Mr Allan's Haddington neighbours really wanted to be part of a new single-tier Lothian region.

Jane Ann Liston

Largo Road

St Andrews, Fife