Sir,
In the year since I was elected to represent the people of Ardrossan and Arran, it has been a steep and challenging learning curve, culminating with the full meeting of North Ayrshire Council last week at which the budget for 2018/19 was agreed.
The main budget features were a tiny increase in the grant from the Scottish Government, increasing demand for social care, rising wages and inflation, and the Scottish Government is requiring councils to provide more services with insufficient money to fund them (in particular, early years learning).