An SNP MSP has accused some councils of "massive waste" and blamed local government for Scotland's falling performance in international education rankings.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) results released in early December gave Scotland its worst education report since devolution, with drops in reading, maths and science.
Alex Neil told Accounts Commission deputy chairman Ronnie Hinds, who was giving evidence to Holyrood's Public Audit and Post-Legislative Scrutiny Committee, that the responsibility lay with local authorities.
He said the commission needed to "get councils to get their act together" and take action, particularly in sharing services for education.
"Local authorities are responsible for the delivery of education and they are failing," Mr Neil added.
Mr Hinds said: "I'm not aware of any evidence that shared services by themselves would make a significant contribution to the issue you're raising about educational attainment."
He said some shared services had not been successful while others had worked.
The committee was examining an Accounts Commission report from November which predicted Scotland's councils could be facing a shortfall of more than £550 million in two years' time and warned of the need to "make significant savings to address forecast funding gaps''.
According to the report, when figures for 2016/17 are taken into account, local authorities have seen a real-terms reduction in government funding of 8.4% since 2010/11.
The commission stated this is ''approximately the same as the reduction in the Scottish Government's total budget over the same period'' when discretionary funding including council tax and non-domestic rates were removed.
The report said councils ''have experienced a long-term decline in their grant funding from the Scottish Government'', adding this ''is expected to continue to fall in future, putting greater pressure on budgets''.
Finance Secretary Derek Mackay said his 2017/18 draft budget is a £240 million increase for local government services but Scottish Parliament researchers said council funding is facing a £166 million drop compared to the 2016/17 draft budget and a £327 million drop from the 2016/17 actual budget.
Mr Neil said: "It seems to me that the drive for increased efficiency in local government is, broadly speaking, with some notable exceptions, pretty sporadic, unsystematic, lacking ambition and so on.
"I represent an area where I can see massive waste in the local authority and I live in another local authority area where I can see massive waste in the local authority's delivery of services.
"What's the Account Commission doing about improving efficiency, reducing waste, improving performance and value for money?"
Mr Hinds said the commission carries out performance audits, to report on good practice and less good practice in local government.
He said there has been an improving trend within the past four or five years in relation to cost to performance.
He said: "I would probably take issue with a suggestion that there's indifference out there, I don't think there is, but there's certainly scope for more improvement than we've seen so far."
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