Local Government Reorganisation: How to avoid a disaster
Parliamentary Briefing
Credits — Common Weal
Overview
A Parliamentary Briefing outlining Common Weal’s concerns over the Scottish Government’s latest local government reform proposals along with solutions for overcoming them.
On 21st September, the Scottish Government announced a proposal for local government reform that appear to be by far the most extensive since the 1993 reorganisation that led to the current system of Local Authorities.
The latest iteration of these proposals are very promising and would be a major step forward in decentralising Scotland and restoring real local democracy to towns across Scotland.
We have some concerns but we believe they can all be overcome – if the Scottish Government pays attention to them now.
At the heart of our concerns is that these plans don’t only keep changing but keep changing radically. The first version of these looked to be substantial centralisation, while the latter appears to be very substantial decentralisation. The Scottish Government must decide what its ultimate goal is and stick to it or the policy will disintegrate.
In particular, at the moment this policy demonstrates all the problems that caused the National Care Service legislation to collapse – imprecise goals, announcements made before policy is considered, proposals set out before proper consultation with the key partners. It is not too late to take a different path.
Summary
Don’t dissolve and rebuild existing local authorities. Create a convergence strategy which will enable more seamless mergers over time.
Focus on creating a municipal-level tier of government which is structure and incentivised to be action-orientated.
Don’t dictate size, shape or number of municipal authorities. Identify them in collaboration with communities.
There must be different politicians at the local and regional level. The local level will work better if it is composed of unpaid community activists rather than whipped party voting blocks.
This will free up resources; municipal councils must have credible budgets.
Municipal government must not get bogged down in administration. It should be constituted to have the project- and action-led mindset of a development trust. To achieve this it should have a broad range of powers but only ‘draw down’ those powers as and when they are needed.
To achieve that a system of ‘reserves’ should be created, indicating what powers are fully reserved to each tier of government which can be drawn down only as necessary, allowing municipal councils to be powerful without excessive burden.
An ‘office of the town manager’ should be created to enact the plans of the municipal council.