Council leaders have long argued the city does not get a fair deal when it comes to the allocation of business rates.

There is a sense of injustice, backed by business leaders that Glasgow loses tens of millions of cash raised and collected here but used to spend in other parts of the country.

There are arguments about how it is allocated, but essentially the block grant from the Scottish Government is adjusted downwards to take account of the additional cash Glasgow collects from business rates.

In these times of austerity – where, whichever way you look at it, local government budgets have been slashed, with tens of thousands of job losses and services affected – if the city was genuinely allowed to keep business rates it could spend the cash ten times over.

George Osborne may be doing a similar give-with-one-hand-take- with-the-other, and the detail needs to be fully examined by councils in England.

But what is clear is that if the council is to be expected to deliver the vital services it does and to the vulnerable people who rely on it for care, it has to be funded properly.

Budgets cannot be cut year after year without services being affected, and we have seen examples of this in our reports on home care in the city.

Keeping business rates will act as an incentive to grow the economy investing in infrastructure to attract businesses and jobs...

Something Glasgow needs.