WILTSHIRE Council receives the seventh smallest funding for education compared to all other local authorities.

It is also in the bottom 25 per cent of local authorities for the amount of cash it gets to spend per person in its population. Similar figures published by Wiltshire Police show that cash for policing in the county remains low prompting the police and crime commissioner's call for fairer funding in October last year. Wiltshire receives £151 per person for policing, the national figure is £171.

A review into the way the cash is distributed to local authorities is due to take place this year.

Cabinet member for finance Phillip Whitehead said: “Historically councils have been funded looking more at deprivation than the cross section of people within the authority. If you are a Metropolitan borough you tend to get more funding as they tend to have areas of deprivation, more younger people working and less older people retired. The fair funding review is set to look at the way in which local government is done.

"Wiltshire Council has higher than average levels of older people and it is care costs that have gone up through the roof as well as pockets of deprivation. Because of this it could be that we will do well in the review.

"However, there is no extra money so anything we benefit from will be taken from other councils and therefore any changes will be small, measured and over a period of time.”

Wiltshire Council currently receives 36p back for every £1 collected for business rates from companies in the county. Coun Whitehead hopes to see incentives created for local authorities that can lure in new businesses into their area.

He hopes councils will get to keep 100 per cent of the first five years of business rates for new businesses in the area.

He said: “That would have a positive outcome as it will help employment and future ambition for children. I’m hopeful of incentives in the fair funding review that we would take advantage of."

Council leader Baroness Jane Scott said: “It is really important we break the funding we get down into per head of population funding. If you look at how much per head of population each area gets the you see big discrepancies and that’s where we need to keep pushing.

“As a council we will be looking at all those things and lobbying hard. This is very much about the difference between shires and urban areas.”