Local Government Committee, 07 Mar 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 7, 2000

Official Report 280KB pdf

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Visits to Councils

There are two reports on visits. The first is on the visit to North Lanarkshire Council. Sylvia Jackson was the reporter. I thought that I was the reporter and Kenny Gibson thought he was the reporter. We were all keen to report. Members have the comments from North Lanarkshire in front of them. Does anyone wish to address any points in particular, or do you wish to say something Kenny, as Sylvia is not here?

Not really. I do not want to re-run the old record that we have been through in the past week, but there is concern at the reduction in the council's resources. For example, the report points out that

"£80 million capital funding is required to bring schools in North Lanarkshire up to standard."

The director of education said that unless additional capital resources are made available, the council might have to close some schools due to their condition. That is an important issue that we need to put on record.

Councillors feel impotent with regard to road and footway problems. A lot of constituents go to see them about those issues, but resources are not available to deal with them because of hypothecation and other reasons. That is an important issue.

We discussed proportional representation. The main opposition group, the SNP, came out in support of an additional member system, but there is an issue of how well informed people are. I met the SNP group separately. Its members understand the system, but I am not sure everyone else does. I hope that when Richard Kerley publishes his report, the debate will be based on knowledge rather than perception.

When we came to employees having the right to stand for election, all councillors held one view, but the chief executive held a different view. It was important to hear his perspective, which was that a residual issue of public confidence is at stake with regard to local government employees working for an authority, even if there are safeguards.

The lack of women in the authority was raised. Only five out of 70 elected members are female. Two of the 12 SNP councillors and three of the 56 Labour councillors are female. We tried to get the two political parties that were represented to take that issue away and address it.

An issue that came up in my notes, but which is not in the report, is that the leader of the council took the view that once best value was established and benchmarked in a service, money taken out of the service devalued it. I raised that in discussion with the Accounts Commission when we had its soiree a couple of weeks ago. It took the opposite view—that best value could never be achieved and that continuous improvement was necessary.

We have to take cognisance of the fact that if an optimum level of service has been achieved, we must determine whether reducing resources or making further efficiency savings will damage it. We have to consider how we can provide protection in such circumstances.

There was a lot of enthusiasm for the Local Government Committee and the covenant between local government and the Scottish Parliament. It was interesting that we met the council officials separately. Although they were coy at first, they did open up. Of interest is their wish for local authority boundaries to be coterminous with health board boundaries, for example.

There are 15 health boards and 32 local authorities. It seems daft that part of the North Lanarkshire Council area falls in the Greater Glasgow Health Board area. The working partnership between health boards and local authorities might be more effective if the council has to deal with only one health board rather than two. At the moment, North Lanarkshire Council has to be involved in all the discussions that take place in Greater Glasgow Health Board, even though the board covers only a small segment of its population.

The meeting was very positive, although there were concerns about local government finance. We visited a couple of facilities. One was a school that was doing excellent work, taking in children with learning difficulties at a very early stage. The school showed us considerable evidence that when children's difficulties are identified at an early stage—whether they have cerebral palsy, dyslexia or whatever—their level of educational attainment can be improved dramatically. I took great heart from that project.

We also visited a project in which people with learning difficulties are employed by a company that is almost able to compete without subsidy on the open market, because of the high level of motivation and skill of the employees. I believe that the company employs some 24 people.

We did not, of course, visit the direct labour organisation.

You should—it is a shining example.

North Lanarkshire Council has been criticised in certain areas over the past couple of years—justifiably, in my view—but we must accept that there are other areas in which it has done a good job. It is important that, regardless of our political persuasion, we examine authorities as a whole. I think that North Lanarkshire is doing reasonably well in some areas, perhaps in difficult circumstances.

I think that the local authority could do more to employ people with learning difficulties directly. Although the council is working in partnership with other agencies to help, the number of people with learning difficulties who are employed by the local authority is very low. The council took that on board when we discussed it.

This was a very productive visit, and I look forward to returning to North Lanarkshire to see how we can continue to move forward.

I visited North Lanarkshire with Mr Gibson, and I agree with what he has said.

Charlie Gray said that the council needs the power of general competence that local government has been requesting for some time, particularly in economic development. The council feels that the lack of such a power detracts from what it could do in that area. The council also talked about ring-fencing and said it did not feel that hypothecation was necessary in many cases.

The council has a debt recovery team, but it is concerned that if poindings and warrant sales are abolished, something solid should be put in their place. The council said that it needed greater dialogue with people in debt.

There was also some comment on compulsory voting. Charlie Gray thought that that was not a bad idea. The council was also in favour of making voting more accessible. It was opposed to an elected mayor. A questionnaire has been sent out to 3,500 council houses on community planning, but the result has not yet been received. We may want to write to the council to ask it whether it intends to publish that.

The council said that it has not been very successful in the second tranche of private finance initiative bids and it wants to know what will happen to those who lost out on challenge funding. It thinks that excellence funds are a better mechanism. It is also having difficulty with match funding.

Like Kenny Gibson, I was impressed by the school and by the factory for adults with learning difficulties. We took up the issue of how many people with learning difficulties are employed by the council. Given that it is a large employer, it probably should have more disabled employees. However, I think that the council took that on board.

The council seemed to be quite happy with its relationships with other outside bodies, such as health boards, and with the resources that are pulled in by the drug action team.

Overall, it was a good visit, but I would like to go back to North Lanarkshire Council again. I thought that the heads of department were a bit reserved during our meeting.

They were reserved compared to the representatives of the Western Isles Council, who were most effusive. However, I thought that the North Lanarkshire heads of department warmed up the longer we were there. There was a bit of fear that Big Brother was watching them.

Or Big Sister.

No, it was Big Brother. I did not mean that the council was acting like Big Brother, but perhaps they were wary of the chief executive, who rode shotgun during the meeting. In such cases, we might have to loosen the participants up a bit before they speak more frankly.

I should have said earlier that the council is in favour of three-year financial budgets, as, like most local authorities, it does not want the annual duel over budget matters.

All in all, I thought that it was a useful visit.

Donald Gorrie will report on the visit to South Lanarkshire Council.

On several occasions, South Lanarkshire Council referred to its concern about the demotivation of local government. It was keen to improve the situation through the power of general competence. It gave examples where it felt that the lack of a power of general competence had delayed initiatives, such as the establishment of Hamilton Ahead, which is a local economic development scheme.

The council likes housing partnerships and thought that they could be a way forward and should be copied in other areas. It wanted to establish such partnerships, which it could lead in a secure position through the power of general competence and the co-operation of other people.

The council did not think that the Executive should be able to fix local authority budgets. It believes that grant-aided expenditure exists in order for the Executive to distribute resources to councils, not for the Executive to determine local decisions on priorities. It was against guidelines, and gave as an example the fact that guidelines do not recognise that East Kilbride has the fastest growing elderly population in Scotland.

On finance in general, like all other councils, South Lanarkshire Council complained that £80 million had been taken out of the budget since 1995 and that it was having to make further cuts of £15 million this year and £60 million next year. The council felt that it did not have enough money to provide the services that it should provide. It was opposed to the ring-fencing of finance and thought that the capital budget system was unfair as, if it found and sold off capital assets, the budget was reduced the next year.

The council said that 65 per cent of its tenants were on housing benefit and that there was a great need to improve the definition of poverty, given that so much of the financial allocation is based on that. It pointed out that the share of the Scottish block that is spent on local government is going down steadily and suggested that Westminster MPs should be arguing for greater UK resources for local government.

The council did not favour a cabinet system for local government; it did not see how one could have a multi-party cabinet system. There was quite a lot of discussion about that. The council has a system of area committees, a fact that raises an interesting issue. The area committees reflect the composition of the council, not the parties of the local members. If there are areas in which the opposition has an unusually large number of members, the numbers are adjusted to ensure that the administration has a majority. The interesting issue is how to decide what should be the democratic composition of an area committee. However, those committees exist and seem to work quite well in many ways.

The community councils have a full slate, but most of them do not hold elections. Murray community council in East Kilbride runs three minibuses as part of a small community transport system.

There are opinion meters in shops, as well as citizens' juries, and the council thought that, in trying to consult publicly, there was a danger of raising expectations that it could not satisfy.

The council favours holding elections every four years, the next being due in 2003. The Labour councillors feel that they need a lot more persuasion on proportional representation, and that the need had not been clearly demonstrated, although the opposition members favour PR.

Councillors raised the point that, perhaps because of its geographical location, the council seems to receive an excessive number of letters from MSPs—it receives 150 letters a month. They think that the relationship between MSPs and the council could be better organised, and are keen to establish a joint standing committee of the councils and the Parliament, which they think would help with the issue of motivation.

There is a significant rural area in the south of the council area, consisting mostly of declining former mining villages. Transport is a main issue, and the council thinks that Strathclyde Passenger Transport uses the wrong calculation for support with fares. The council is concerned that there should be better support for such areas. As a result of the lack of transport, some villages contain refurbished houses that cannot be let. It was pointed out to us that there are no resources for social inclusion programmes in rural areas, although they often suffer greater problems. They are not rural in the same way as the Highlands; but decayed small villages that have severe problems.

Finally, we visited John Ogilvie High School, which is particularly good in community work, especially in music, as well as other activities. The teachers explained the problems that they had experienced because of financial cuts.

Those are the main points, and a lot of the issues are covered in the council's written response.

Are there any questions?

I took part in that visit as well, and would like to update members. The programme that is run at John Ogilvie High School has been so successful that the head teacher there was awarded a CBE in the honours list in recognition of that. The school makes an outstanding contribution in an area of severe deprivation that contains an inordinately high number of children from single-parent backgrounds.

There are five school bands. The school believes that by introducing music to children and by having every pupil in the school develop through music, the education process is enhanced. That approach has proved successful. They have a pop group, a flute ensemble and all sorts of things. Every part of the school is focused on music. Given the level of deprivation in the area, the success that they have in music is incredible, as was recognised in the honours list award to the head teacher.

When schools are doing such exemplary work, it is important that it is recognised. Other schools in the locale and the wider area can learn from such work. Perth and Kinross Council is having to dismiss music teachers because it does not have enough money to pay their salaries as well as to pay classroom assistants.

I am a bit concerned about the figures in question 2 of the report. The report says that the council

"is looking at £15 million further cuts this year and £60 million next year."

To be fair to the Executive, should not that second figure be £16 million? Surely the figure of £60 million cannot be accurate?

Although they may be mistaken, those were the figures that the council gave us. Donald Gorrie has given the figures that the council gave. I do not know the justification for the figures, but they have been recorded accurately.

Again in response to question 2, the council says that

"there is no incentive to attract industry, when the capital receipt gained then leads to a lower capital allocation."

Did the council expand on that? Surely it would want to attract industry for its own sake.

The council felt that it was penalised. If it sells its land to a developer, it does not benefit, so there is no incentive to go out and encourage people to buy.

But if people get jobs, they will pay council tax and so on.

The council was not suggesting that, because of the lack of incentive, it was not doing anything, but felt that there should be a financial incentive if the council found ground and then went out and found people to set up factories on it. The council felt that it should benefit directly financially, as well as indirectly through jobs and so on. At the moment, it does not benefit financially. The system of capital allocation penalises it.

Did the council feel that it lost out because it was considered to be neither a rural nor an urban authority, but a kind of halfway house? Is its rural dimension recognised, or the level of deprivation in its urban communities?

You are absolutely right: the council feels that it falls between two stools. In terms of geography and transport provision, it is quite a large authority, but the population of the authority is very much concentrated in East Kilbride and Hamilton. However, the council also has a number of outlying districts that require good transport links. The council suffers from having high-density population areas as well as rural areas. As Donald Gorrie explained, a lot of those rural communities are in decline; and because they do not have bus services or proper transport links, people feel isolated and will not live there any longer.

Many areas have also lost objective 2 funding. I notice that the final sentence of the response to question 2 says:

"The Council wondered who advised Jack McConnell on the allocation of finance to councils."

The council also says that there is a bias towards Glasgow and that South Lanarkshire has as good a claim as Glasgow for deprivation money. Did it expand on the way in which it thought that the mechanism for defining poverty should be improved?

No, but it recognised the problems and felt that the mechanisms had to be addressed again. It felt that too much weight was given to certain criteria, and pointed out that 65 per cent of its council tenants were on housing benefit, which showed a high degree of poverty. However, I do not think that the council had a ready-made scheme; it was simply pressing for the powers that be to get stuck into the issue.

There is a social inclusion partnership area in the Hamilton and Blantyre part of the council, but the deprivation levels in the rural communities are as bad. However, the rural areas do not benefit in terms of financial support in the way that they might do were the whole authority urban. The problem is the mixed rural and urban make-up of the authority and the way in which finance is distributed because of that.

We now move on to housekeeping issues.

Meeting continued in private until 17.03.