The council budget cuts last February are giving rise to more complaints.

Repairs to street lights are taking longer. You may never have considered the repairs to be speedy. Slow repairs used to be the result of two factors. Either the 'dark' lamp had not been reported, or the fault was due to a problem with the electrical supply.

The responsibility for the electricity supply lies with Scottish Power. Unfortunately they do not consider repairs of street lighting a priority and they attend to them in their own time. They are aware that the public invariably blames the council for the failures in street lighting.

Now the council street lighting team are struggling to cope with the demand. The programme of replacing the old sodium fittings with LED lanterns is being carried out by an external contractor. I understand that the council lighting team have been assisting them more than anticipated.

People have also made comment about the grassed areas in the public space. They have noticed that there has been a reduction in the number of times that the grass is cut in sensitive areas like graveyards. It has drawn so many complaints that the question is to be reviewed by the council's area committees.

In schools there has been the removal of all attendance officers and librarians. Libraries and librarians are both valued in the community. They contribute to the quality of our lives. Our school pupils are now having to cope without their expertise in opening their young minds to the wonderful world of literature and knowledge contained in books. Education is more than just exam results.

The attendance officers are also absent from our schools. But their role has not gone away. There are still pupils who are reluctant to attend school, and need to be cajoled and encouraged to attend class on a daily basis.

The work of the attendance officers is now undertaken by teachers, putting them under ever more pressure. Youngsters who skip class regularly limit their ability to achieve their full potential in later life.

The SNP council group brought forward a motion at the council meeting last week to give head teachers the freedom to restore librarians and attendance officers. This initiative was met with stony faces from the ruling administration. They preened themselves on their ability to take hard decisions and voted down a fair proposal.