POLITICIANS and officials at Wiltshire County Council are hoping that changes in the way local councils are funded will benefit Wiltshire.

Currently, Wiltshire is the seventh lowest funded county council in the country. For years it has said the money it receives from Government is below what it needs to spend on education, Social Services and roads.

The complex system which the Government uses to allocate money to all councils is currently under review.

Numerous options to reform the funding formula have been put forward by the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. Local councils have until September 30 to respond.

Wiltshire County Council's treasury officials are analysing the options and are in the process of working out which of them would favour Wiltshire.

The worst case scenario would be a reduction in funding of £10 million but if the funding formula was stacked in Wiltshire's favour it could receive up to £30 million more.

Peter Chalke, the leader of Wiltshire County Council, and others from the county council have been regularly lobbying ministers at Whitehall for a fairer system of funding that recognises the pressures on rural counties.

Coun Chalke said: "I am looking to someone in Whitehall to listen to our arguments and hope that there is recognition of the high cost and fast growth in Wiltshire in the funding formula we end up with."

A particular source of irritation is that the rural nature of Wiltshire, or sparsity, is not recognised.

It is the sparsity which leads to the high cost of providing school transport, and the cost for care workers who have to travel further than their counterparts in less isolated counties.