It wouldn't take too much digging on the part of a Scotsman journalist to figure out that the city centre gets extra cleansing resources chucked at it all the time. These are funded by Essential Edinburgh, which in turn is funded by local businesses.

The Tories know fine well that the city centre has way more money spent on it, by both the private and the publc sector, so comparing the performance of the city centre with the performance in the suburbs is not comparing like with like. If the cleansing service was privatised city-wide, it's hard to see how the service would improve - as there'd be no extra resource coming from the council to fund it, and councillors would have even less control over the services provided than they have already.

As the City Council don't release the full reports from Keep Scotland Beautiful, we don't know whether the quoted drop in standards in the outlying areas is significant, part of a trend, or anything. However, it is interesting that the executive don't do more to set the record straight, and rumours abound that the council are indeed considering privatising the service. Can't help wondering whether this Tory effort to undermine the council cleansing service has the tacit support of the SNP/LibDem administration.