How the additional road maintenance funding announced for 2006-07 and future years will be allocated to each local authority and how much e…

The Scottish Executive announced on 29 September 2004, as part of the outcome of spending review 2004, an increase in provision for grant aided expenditure (GAE) for road maintenance of £60 million for 2006-07 and 2007-08. This figure is an increase in the Executive’s provision for local authority expenditure funded by a combination of centrally provided government funding through Aggregate External Finance (AEF) and funding raised by local authorities through council tax revenue. Local authorities are free to spend above or below GAE according to their own priorities and budget decisions. The money that local authorities receive through AEF is, in the main, provided by way of a block grant and is not allocated to specific services that local authorities provide.
GAE is allocated to individual local authorities on the basis of a needs-based distribution formula agreed with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA). The main indicator used in the distribution of the roads maintenance GAE allocations is the road length within each local authority with the number of vehicle licenses per kilometre being used as a secondary indicator.
Almost all of the £60 million increase in GAE (£59.9 million) was allocated to local authorities across three GAE areas; road maintenance, winter maintenance and road lighting. The total GAE for these three areas for the next three years is shown in the attached table. The balance of £0.1 million was allocated to other transport related GAE’s. The overall increase in transport GAE’s was £62.350 million in 2006-07 and £66.076 million in 2007-08.
Grant Aided Expenditure Allocations for Roads Maintenance, Winter Maintenance and Road Lighting 2005-08
Local Authority
| Total
2005-06
£000
| Total
2006-07
£000
| Total
2007-08
£000

Aberdeen City
| 7,529
| 9,785
| 9,786

Aberdeenshire
| 18,684
| 22,896
| 22,898

Angus
| 6,766
| 8,266
| 8,267

Argyll and Bute
| 9,188
| 11,213
| 11,214

Clackmannanshire
| 2,103
| 2,698
| 2,698

Dumfries and Galloway
| 13,378
| 16,247
| 16,248

Dundee City
| 4,629
| 5,708
| 5,708

East Ayrshire
| 5,562
| 6,915
| 6,916

East Dunbartonshire
| 4,389
| 5,467
| 5,468

East Lothian
| 4,445
| 5,498
| 5,499

East Renfrewshire
| 3,709
| 4,644
| 4,645

Edinbur