Tayside

Tayside Region (Taobh Tatha in Gaelic) was a local government region of Scotland from 15 May 1975 to 31 March 1996. It was created by the 1973 Act following recommendations made by the 1969 Wheatley Report which attempted to replace the mishmash of counties, cities, burghs and districts, with a uniform two-tier system of regional and district councils. Following the 1994 Local Government Act, it is now divided into the council areas of Angus, the City of Dundee and Perth and Kinross, which had previously been the region's districts.

Tayside Regional Council directly operated local bus services in the City of Dundee from 1975 until 1986, when bus deregulation under terms of the Transport Act 1985 was introduced. Tayside Buses serving mainly Dundee and parts of Angus Council area (Strathtay Buses servicing Dundee and greater Tayside (including Perth)is now owned by Stagecoach) became employee owned and were eventually sold to Travel Midlands National Express and rebranded as Travel Dundee.

Tayside continues to have a joint electoral, valuation, and health boards. It also kept its police and fire services until they were merged on 1 April 2013, all 32 local authorities fire and police services in Scotland are now known as Police Scotland and Scottish Fire & Rescue Service, now fully national Scottish public bodies. www.firescotland.gov.uk and www.scotland.police.uk

Angus Council, Dundee City Council and Perth and Kinross Council formed Tayside Contracts as their commercial arm and to provide shared services, such as road and housing maintenance, winter maintenance (snow clearing and gritting), catering and cleaning services across the former Tayside area. Tayside Contracts services are open to the public and all profits from the company are equally fed back into each of the 3 councils to bolster revenue to the local authorities to provide cash for services as a boost to central government and council tax income.