Public disservice

Let’s not be fooled by the public relations talk (your report, 2 April). The formation of the single Scottish Police and Fire and ­Rescue services has been driven by cost cutting.

They cannot retain local accountability. The regional boards have been abolished.

Each will have a management board but, operationally, each has to cover the entire country from Stranraer to Uist in Shetland and Berneray in the Outer Hebrides.

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Accountability to the local authorities has been abolished and, ultimately, they will be accountable to Holyrood.

Operational control will be located within the Central Belt. The decision was passed without the business case being submitted to parliament.

Our First Minister tells his conference that Westminster is not fit for purpose. At Westminster, there are checks and balances.

At Holyrood, our Executive acts as the most authoritarian administration in my lifetime with the possible exception of during the Second World War.

John Kelly

High Street

Dalkeith

Scotland’s new single police and fire services are to be hit with a VAT bombshell of £25 million a year.

The Scottish Government had hoped to convince the UK government that this new body should not be liable for VAT.

Under the old system, police and fire services were treated as local authorities and were exempt from VAT.

Treasury officials warned Scottish ministers in August 2011 that the new single police force would have to pay VAT unless they changed the way it was funded.

The Scottish Government ­ignored this advice.

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Now, because of the SNP’s ­incompetence, there will need to be £25m taken away from other departments budgets for at least two years and then become a charge against the police budget.

If this is the type of financial expertise the SNP has, then heaven help us if Scotland votes for independence.

Clark Cross

Springfield Road

Linlithgow