Good afternoon. The first item of business is a Local Government and Regeneration Committee debate on motion S4M-11811, in the name of Kevin Stewart, on flexibility and autonomy in local government.
I call Kevin Stewart to speak to and move the motion on behalf of the committee. Mr Stewart, you have 13 minutes exactly.
It gives me great pleasure to open on the Local Government and Regeneration Committee’s behalf this debate on our report on flexibility and autonomy in local government. The report was completed shortly before the summer recess, and the Parliament has the benefit of the Scottish Government’s response to it. Also relevant is the report of the commission on strengthening local democracy, which was set up and run by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I might touch on aspects of that report later but, for now, I will concentrate on our report.
Earlier this year, the committee agreed to undertake a short inquiry into the levels of flexibility and autonomy available to local government in Scotland. In many ways, it was a natural follow-on from other work that we have undertaken this session, such as our three-stage report on public service reform, our work on the delivery of regeneration and our report on turnout at the previous local government elections.
We wanted to inform the on-going debate on whether local democratic structures need to be strengthened and enhanced. We thought that our work would be timely, given the other activity that was taking place across our country, but we never realised just how timely it would turn out to be as the year unfolded and the focus turned more and more towards local democracy. In particular, we wanted to know how local government could become more effective, more accountable and more accessible to people and communities.
In the course of our inquiry, three committee members went on a whistle-stop tour of Hamburg, Copenhagen and Malmö during this year’s Easter recess to talk to local politicians in each place and compare how their local democratic systems worked. We heard from academics, council leaders, members of the commission that I mentioned earlier, leaders of minority groupings on councils and the office bearers in the newly re-established Scottish Provosts Association. We also used videolink technology to speak to politicians in the Åland Islands, before hearing from the then Minister for Local Government and Planning.
Of course, we were extremely keen to hear local people’s views. The committee does a lot of that; in fact, in the past couple of years, we have covered the length and breadth of the country, from Shetland to Dumfries and from Stornoway to Glasgow, Ayr, Cumbernauld, Dundee and, of course, Aberdeen. We have used Twitter to run discussions; we have listened to folks on web exchanges; and we are now the first committee on these islands to have its own Instagram account—although I must be honest and say that I do not really know how it works.
We have lots of tales to tell, but the one constant message that we have received loud and clear is that democracy must not start and finish at national or even council headquarters level. It must become more effective, more accountable and more accessible to people and communities. The Parliament should remember that we wrote our report before the events of 18 September and the mobilisation of civic Scotland in becoming involved in decisions that affect it.
Even before we started our current scrutiny of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill, we knew—because we had been told again and again—that if communities are to be empowered those powers must be passed down through the tiers of government. Let me say straight away that local authorities have powers to devolve functions and budgets to a community level. We know that, and they know that, but it is not happening and we were keen to find out why it was not.
We divided our report into five parts, and I will say a few words about each while concentrating mostly on flexibility. I repeat that there is ample opportunity for local authorities to be more flexible, devolve down and not only involve but empower local people.
It is interesting that the report of the commission on strengthening local democracy majors on increasing the number of local authorities and councillors while agreeing with us about the need to devolve power to the most appropriate level, to enhance subsidiarity and to remove centralist controlling tendencies. The message that we received from those in the communities that we consulted was clear—they have no interest in authorities’ size or structure; what concerns them is their ability to influence bodies.
We agree with the Scottish Provosts Association, which consists of long-serving councillors who have lived through previous reorganisations. It advised against significant change to existing structures. Like a number of other witnesses, the association’s representatives pointed to changes that are happening that range from the sharing of services and functions to joint boards and, of course, the sharing of budgets. The association was clear, as was the minister, that any new structures would be a distraction and simply divert attention from devolving powers.
The Scottish Community Alliance suggested that there is no doubt that councils have invested heavily in attempting to engage communities more effectively, before adding that most attempts have resulted in abject failure. We wondered why that was, as local authorities talk constantly about subsidiarity. Most communities disagreed with the suggestion. They told us that councillors are too remote and in particular that power is centralised. That happened in the Western Isles, where communities think that there is far too much focus on Stornoway; it also happened just the other week when we visited Fort William, where communities think that power is centralised far too much in Inverness.
Local communities—to a man, woman and schoolchild—all want more influence, involvement and autonomy. We were frequently told, “Our opinions do not count; the decision has been made.” However, some councillors told us that it is very easy to work with communities if we put our minds to it. That is not about having a chat with people; it is about empowering the community.
Why is that not happening? Why are communities not being empowered to make local decisions? Local authority councillors and officials told us that they are restricted in what they are allowed to do and the actions that they can take. Examples were given of restrictions preventing them from devolving budgets or empowering local communities. Every time we heard that, we asked what the barrier was, what was preventing them from acting, what was the reason for the restriction and why action could not happen. Do you know what, Presiding Officer? They generally admitted that the barrier was their own self-given restrictions and internal cultures. They agreed that they have the tools and ability and that the barriers exist mainly in their mindsets.
Addressing that takes courage and willpower. That applies on both sides. Local authorities must display that courage and willpower, but so too must communities, to demand empowerment then take it and use it when offered. Many opportunities are coming in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill but, frankly, many exist. The bill is largely a measure to force authorities to do what they should have been doing for many years—engaging meaningfully, involving communities and devolving responsibility and accountability to the lowest possible level.
We heard about and discussed who should exercise devolved powers in communities. There was a lot of talk about community councils getting more powers—mainly, it has to be said, from community councillors. Frankly, we do not think that it matters who the powers go to, as long as they are representative of the community. We need a flexible approach, and if a body is respected by and representative of the community—be it a residents, housing or tenants association, a community trust or centre or whatever—it should be offered powers to exercise on the community’s behalf. Those powers should be accompanied by budgets to exercise on behalf of the same communities.
Our second strand, on public engagement, also covered turnout at local elections. In our report on the 2012 local government elections, we made a number of recommendations covering voter turnout, postal and proxy voting, ordering of the ballot paper and the timing of elections. We made recommendations about increasing diversity, the age of voters and other equality matters. Perhaps the minister will update the Parliament on when the results of his subsequent consultation will be published and how the recommendations that we made are to be addressed.
I do not propose to dwell on our third strand, which related to funding mechanisms, as the committee unanimously agreed that those mechanisms require to be addressed and that a resolution requires to be reached before the next local elections in 2017. We recommended that an independent cross-party commission be established to take that work forward. I am pleased that the Government seems to agree with us and look forward to that commission starting its work soon. Perhaps the minister will take the opportunity to update us on the plans and to confirm what the commission will look at.
Our fourth strand looked at remote, peripheral and island communities. We support the principle of joint working between the island authorities and their receiving more powers. That would allow them to implement bespoke policies in their areas. A flexible approach is required. We were pleased to learn that the Lerwick declaration applies equally to all parts of Scotland. We did not see a need or see it as desirable for all local authorities to have identical powers.
In our fifth strand, we considered the level of legal flexibility and autonomy from central Government that local government should enjoy. Local authorities exercise many duties on the people’s behalf. Some duties are mandatory, such as schooling, social welfare and housing duties; other powers—to promote economic development, the arts and tourism, for example—are discretionary.
When academic witnesses wondered why devolution had not followed through to local government, they talked about a tendency for central control and suggested that parties in opposition are generally keen on decentralisation and that parties in government centralise. They said that the same applies to councils, which perhaps illustrates a controlling tendency across all politicians at whatever level when they are in power. I do not think that that necessarily applies to all politicians. The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill is an example that shows where we can do much better.
In a number of our reports, we have said that retaining control at the centre—whether that is Inverness, Stornoway, Edinburgh or Westminster—stifles innovation and stops risk taking. Governments and councils have democratic mandates, but we maintain that they should be exercised with or by the people and that things should not be done to people. We expect the risk-aversion culture to be addressed. Only in that way will staff and communities become empowered, and only then will innovation be encouraged.
We want local authorities to use their existing powers better and to adopt greater flexibility in their policies and practices. Structures should suit communities, not the centre, and we expect different structures in different places, within and across authorities.
The role of central Government should be to specify core services and set minimum standards. Thereafter, local authorities should be free—indeed, they are free at the moment—to determine which standards need to be exceeded locally, whether that is across their region or in more discrete areas. They should be able to act flexibly to reflect local need and, in making such decisions, we are clear that they are properly exercising their democratic functions. We expect services to differ to meet needs across the country. Communities should not all expect identical service provision beyond agreed levels.
Our report is fairly wide ranging, albeit that it is on the single subject of local government. It was unanimous; all of us agreed with every one of our conclusions. I hope that members agree that it was timely. I look forward to hearing contributions from members across the chamber.
I am delighted to move the motion. I move,
That the Parliament notes the findings of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee’s 8th Report 2014 (Session 4), Flexibility and Autonomy in Local Government (SP Paper 573).
14:43
I thank, on behalf of the Scottish Government, the Local Government and Regeneration Committee for its inquiry report, and congratulate it on securing the debate.
Local government is an essential part of Scotland’s government. It carries weighty responsibilities for delivering the services that the man and woman in the street need, starting with the street itself and going on to schools, housing, social care, parks, libraries, nurseries, support for business and town centres. The list is endless.
Increasing the voice of the man or woman in the street through empowerment and engagement of their communities is an essential part of my ministerial role. It is not by accident that the portfolio is local government and community empowerment.
Since the committee published its report, there have been three events that have emphasised its timeliness and importance. First, the referendum saw levels of voter participation that are unparalleled in our democratic history; the 85 per cent turnout demonstrated a huge popular appetite for participating in decision making.
The ensuing Smith report is the second event. Although members across the chamber no doubt have different opinions on the next steps for the report as a whole, I hope that we can rally around two key sections. The first is Lord Smith’s foreword referencing
“the transfer of powers from Holyrood to local communities”.
The second is the proposal to give Holyrood control over its own elections, which will enable this Parliament to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds in time for our next elections in 2016—we hope.
Thirdly, the publication of our programme for government has set the empowering and engaging of communities in its rightful place—at the heart of everything that we do.
All that has happened in just three short months. Today is the right time to air the questions about where we will go from here. In that regard, the committee’s report is not just timely; it is also substantial.
We have always known that the electorate is keenly interested in how the nation is run, but the independence referendum was a passionate engagement in democracy—one that contrasts starkly with the turnout of under 40 per cent for the previous local government elections and, indeed, with the 50 per cent turnout for the last Holyrood election. On local election voter turnout, the committee concluded that the relatively low level of engagement in formal local politics is partly related to the nature of the relationship that citizens and communities have with government, and is also because people are more interested in how functions are exercised and, crucially, whether they can influence them, than they are in considerations such as the number of councillors. We endorse those important conclusions. We note that the independent commission on strengthening local democracy that was established by COSLA considered that issue at length, too.
As Kevin Stewart said, earlier this year our consultation on Scotland’s electoral future sought views on how to encourage wider engagement and participation in the electoral process. My predecessor, Derek Mackay, established a group that brought together representatives from key sectors including the third sector, youth organisations and political parties to discuss the way forward. In the new year, the Minister for Parliamentary Business and I will return to the group with the results of that consultation in order to consider collaboratively the next steps.
The committee also rightly reported that how people feel they are governed and how empowered they are to influence decisions that affect their lives are not just about devolution from Westminster to here or from here to local government; they are also about devolving responsibilities to communities. Participatory budgeting is already being promoted by the Scottish Government, with free training being provided to local authorities and others in order to raise awareness of that grass-roots participatory activity. In the past two months, delegates from 26 local authority areas have attended six training events across Scotland.
Participatory budgeting empowers communities by providing them with direct influence over how and where public funds are to be used in those communities. I will repeat what the First Minister said in her statement on the programme for government:
“fostering a sense of participation is about ... more than consulting.”—[Official Report, 26 November 2014; c 20.]
We are therefore also providing funding direct to grass-roots community bodies up and down the country to support their work and to help to build their capacity to act. We are investing £7.9 million this year and £9.4 million next year to support community–led regeneration through the people and communities fund. In the programme for government we also announced £10 million investment through the empowering communities fund. That will build on and complement existing support in order to help communities to work more on tackling inequalities on their own terms.
There is no one template for enabling communities to be partners in decision making. Different communities will, by their nature, have different concerns, different attitudes to risk and a desire to create different structures, as a result. Those have to be seen as natural parts of democracy rather than barriers to it; in that regard we also note the committee report’s well-made observations on arm’s-length external organisations.
In short, we cannot be prescriptive about which are the right powers to be exercised by communities. We are always open to new approaches in that regard, which is perhaps shown most clearly by the ground-breaking discussions with the island areas ministerial working group that culminated in our new prospectus for the islands.
What we must do, however, is ensure that all communities will be able to take advantage of the new rights and powers that will come from the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill. The bill is an important step towards ensuring that Scotland’s current civic interest can grow or perhaps blossom—to borrow a word from elsewhere—into a wholesale democratic renewal. In the spirit of working in partnership and as the new minister in charge of the bill, I therefore take this opportunity to offer to meet the spokespersons of all four Opposition parties early in the new year to discuss the bill and to listen to views or proposals that they want to put forward. We can sit around a table and by a bit of collaboration and maybe a bit of frank discussion ensure that what the bill sets out to do can reflect and do justice to the common goal that I think we all share.
As a Government, we are also keen to encourage participation from all sides of the chamber on the future of local taxation. Local government already has greater fiscal autonomy than the Parliament, with significant tax and borrowing powers and scope to raise revenues from charging and trading, which it does to the tune of over £2 billion. Since 2008, all Scotland’s council tax payers have been benefiting from a council tax freeze, which every local authority has chosen to apply and which the Government has matched with additional resources to make up for councils’ forgone income. Through that partnership we have helped to keep household expenses down at a time when household incomes have been coming under pressure.
Partnership is at the heart of our approach to local government; I therefore reiterate our commitment to working with COSLA to establish an independent commission to examine fairer alternatives to the council tax as a long-term solution. We are currently at the stage of engaging with the COSLA leadership on the commission, and we will also engage with all political parties on it. I have sensed a definite willingness from COSLA to engage and I hope to be able to update members on it soon. Council tax contributes nearly £2 billion to funding local services and is paid by over 2 million households, so the importance of the commission and its work cannot be overstated. The need for such a commission is another conclusion of the committee’s report that the Government shares.
In coming to its conclusions, the Local Government and Regeneration Committee has had to explore difficult and detailed areas that might often have become contentious, but it has done so with knowledge, skill and tact. I finish simply by acknowledging that work again.
14:52
First, I note that this debate will be followed by a statement on the local government financial settlement, so I hope that members will accept that I will have to leave the chamber at some point this afternoon.
I very much welcome this chance to debate the Local Government and Regeneration Committee report. I think that 2014 will go down as an important year for the development of thinking about devolution, not just on the referendum question of independence versus devolution but on the stronger Scottish Parliament that will come from that. However, a debate that has been going on in parallel and to which Kevin Stewart and Margo Biagi have referred is the debate about double devolution, which is what I think we are here to discuss this afternoon.
I welcome the minister to his new post and say to him that it is important that we think about not only transferring power from the UK level to the Scottish level and from the Scottish level to local authorities, but transferring power to our communities. The committee rightly referenced the huge contribution to that debate that was made by the commission on strengthening local democracy in Scotland. The range of discussions and the number of people involved in that process and the length of time that it went on were helpful.
The Labour Party’s powers-for-a-purpose devolution commission looked at a fundamental question that I want to reflect on, particularly given the minister’s comments about finance and local government’s huge opportunities to shape its destiny.
One of the fundamental questions that we believe needs to be looked at is the extent to which local government exists to administer statutory services directed by this Parliament and paid for by the Scottish Government. What is local government’s role in implementing legislation and Scottish Government policy? What is the balance in terms of local accountability in representing democratic views across our different communities? What is the scope for local government to have a local state with the ambition that it wants and the capacity to intervene locally?
There is a balancing issue. Paradoxically, in the past few years, there has been more and more talk about community empowerment while there has been a centralising state in Scotland. That remains a live issue for the work that must be at the heart of the debate about finance.
The committee’s recommendations for genuine—
Will Sarah Boyack give way?
I was just referring to the committee, so I will take Kevin Stewart if he is brief.
Does Ms Boyack agree that, since the demise of ring fencing, local government has had more flexibility over what it wants to do than it ever had before? Does she also agree that local authorities could go even further but sometimes—as is outlined in the report—are a little risk averse to going their own way?
Although the headline is about more scope and power for local government, if we look at the detail of the council tax freeze and its implications for local government funding, the irony is that local government does not have the flexibility in day-to-day decision making that Mr Stewart claims for it. I will come on to that.
I welcome the principle of cross-party discussions and I agree with the committee that they need to concern more than just the council tax. We need to consider other funding issues that local government has to deal with and other fund-raising opportunities. The problem is that, at the moment, local government is fixed on raising income through increasing charges, which does not satisfy the test of social equality or social inclusion. Increasing charges for services that used to be free means that people who are on council tax benefit and a low income are hit by the cost-of-living crisis.
The issue is complex and difficult, which is why I support the committee’s recommendation that we need to go beyond considering only the council tax. It is a relatively small part of councils’ income, most of which now comes directly from the Scottish Government. Although we talk about local government, we need to think about where we want the balance to lie. The COSLA-funded commission is absolutely clear about that, but the Scottish Government’s approach to the deals that have been struck with COSLA does not genuinely empower local authorities or local communities.
In a way, that is why I was so interested in the our islands, our future recommendations. They are radical and different. They say that one size does not and should not fit all. However, there is a bit in the middle that we need to think about. If cities have city deals and the island communities have the our islands, our future recommendations, what happens to the small or relatively modestly sized councils—such as Clackmannanshire Council and Perth and Kinross Council—that are caught in the middle and not automatically part of those wider debates?
Will Sarah Boyack give way on that point?
No, I definitely will not.
The Smith agreement transfers new powers to the Scottish Government, and I hope that the Scottish Government will consider transferring those powers on to local government.
The funding crisis that local government faces is severe and needs to be owned up to. I had a look at the City of Edinburgh Council’s budget challenge, in which Edinburgh residents go online and decide how they want to spend the council’s money. Once people start going in to change the sliders, they realise just how difficult those decisions are. With the health board cash-strapped and everyone agreeing that we need to transfer resource into social care, people need only try to change the social care budget and move up the housing budget and the services for local care and they will see how difficult that is to do with a £67 million overspend. Many of the budgets that people would want to shift further back will come up with a red-line issue saying that, if they did that, the council would not be able to ensure that it scrutinised its budget properly, which would lead to other problems.
Councils are at one of the toughest times since the mid period of the previous Conservative Government decades ago.
Will Sarah Boyack give way?
No.
The member is about to close.
We should be trying to shift funding for older people’s care in the health budgets towards local authorities. Health and social care integration is the right thing to do in principle, but I observe that it is not currently happening. If we are considering a review of local government finance, how we make that work in practice is one of the issues that must be addressed. Just lecturing people and being disappointed in them for not delivering integration is not good enough. We need to be able to make sure that it happens.
14:59
I, too, welcome the new minister to his post. I hope that he will display the same charm and knowledge that his predecessor did.
Sook!
Shut up! [Laughter.] That was unparliamentary language—I am sorry, Presiding Officer.
I welcome this opportunity to discuss local government. In particular, it is welcome that we are discussing the findings of a report concerning the flexibility and autonomy of local government. Often, debates on such matters have been entirely focused on specific policy areas. Although those might be important, that has avoided the overreaching questions about the role, position and power of local authorities.
We Scottish Conservatives said in the report of the Strathclyde commission that the centralisation of powers from local government to central Government should be reversed. That is the crux of the issue at hand.
Before going into debates about where power should lie and how best to work in local communities’ best interests, there is an important point to be acknowledged. Community engagement with local government, both democratically at elections and procedurally, is far below the level that one would hope for. Indeed, the Scottish Community Alliance described attempts to engage communities in local government as an “abject failure”.
We cannot ignore that situation, and we need to understand its underlying causes. Addressing disengagement should be a primary objective within our desires to change the set-up of local government. To highlight the scale of the disconnect, we have only to compare turnout at Scottish local elections with turnout in other European countries. Turnout in our local government elections in 2012 was a rather pathetic 40 per cent, whereas the figure was 60 per cent in Germany in 2008. It was as high as 72 per cent in Denmark in 2013. Those figures demonstrate that high turnouts can be achieved, as we have seen recently, and we would do well to set out to improve our own figures.
As a starting point, I look forward to the results of the Scottish Government’s consultation on a range of other matters concerning voting habits. In the referendum, it became relevant: people felt that every vote counted. It seems from the discussions that we had that people did not think that their vote counted in local elections, as has already been discussed.
Furthermore, disenchantment with local politics is widespread, with many people feeling terribly detached from local government processes. The 2012 Scottish household survey found that only 21 per cent of adults in Scotland
“agreed that they could influence decisions affecting their local area.”
That is a shocking figure. It is not good enough. The committee report highlights some of the issues that may be causing that disenchantment, such as the finding that some consultations by local authorities are perceived as “tokenistic” and that they should be made more “meaningful and timely.”
Another point that the report draws attention to is the variety of associations that are involved in local politics and the inconsistency in their powers. In our various discussions with community groups throughout Scotland, when we went out to engage with the public, the variety not in organisations’ powers but in their names was highlighted. They are called community councils, residents associations, community trusts and tenants associations, but they all basically have the same aims.
The point is that some of the disengagement from local politics is possibly due to its complexity. We must recognise that there is inconsistency between the powers and functions of community councils and those of other local organisations, which can make opportunities for members of the public to contribute far from obvious.
The problem may not be the variety, but rather the lack of transparency that such variety can bring. Reform to make it clearer where responsibility lies in each area would, in my opinion, help to restore widespread community engagement. That ties in with the committee report’s point about consultations being tokenistic, and thereby underlines the message that participation and clarity in local government are in need of improvement.
One of the most important aspects of local government when it comes to flexibility and autonomy is finances, as has already been touched on. With local authority funding and expenditure in the current year expected to exceed £11.5 billion across the 32 local authorities, that is no small matter.
We may be able to claim that there is a cross-party consensus that the present model of council funding—through council tax, Scottish Government grants, fees, business rates and other income—needs to change, but a crucial decision on how to reform has yet to be made. I welcome what the minster has said about cross-party discussions on that. The options for adjusting the share raised by each of those funding avenues is certainly a topic of debate—one that I think we should enter into during this session.
In that respect, the report has rather hit the nail on the head in saying:
“meaningful debate on alternative approaches”
to funding needs to happen
“within the lifetime of this Parliament ... with the aim of having a new system identified in time for the next local government elections in 2017.”
Having said that, I make it clear that proper, detailed debate needs to happen at all levels of public life, before the report’s suggestion that local authorities should have powers to raise sums locally can be committed to. That is an option that, among others, should be looked at in considerable detail, which is what the Scottish Conservatives will do.
I do not think that the apparently favoured policy of the Scottish National Party—to set up a local income tax—would help. It would cause considerable difficulties. Accordingly, I hope that my colleagues in the chamber will agree with me that we must accurately assess the present state of local authorities and local politics before embarking on programmes to reshape them. In that respect, a principal problem is voter disengagement, which has been caused by a number of factors—which we have gone into.
Later in the debate, I will go into more of the details of the report, which has highlighted some important points, while leaving room for constructive debate to take place. I reiterate that the central point to be discussed is how, in the present climate, we and local authorities can work together to reverse the centralisation of powers.
15:05
I have been a member of a political party now for 53 years and I am going to say some things that are perhaps negative about the involvement of political parties when they get close to communities. First, let me visit a little bit of history. In 1831, there were fewer than 3,000 electors in Scotland for parliamentary elections. Therefore, the connection with the wider community was all but nil. Incidentally, we tend to forget that the 1832 great reform act removed the right of female persons to vote in parliamentary elections, although it left them able to vote in council elections, subject to the property qualification. When we look at the history of this topic, we see quite a lot of interesting things.
Of course, until the Pontefract by-election, which took place on 15 August 1872, people voted by going up to the front, to the returning officer, and saying what candidate they were going to vote for. Indeed, before 1872, the way in which people voted was published. I have the electoral roll for the Blofield district, which happens to be near Norwich; it was the only one that I could readily find. It shows that in the 1871 parliamentary by-election, James Bond voted Tory but his neighbour on the electoral roll, John Bailey, voted Whig. People’s votes were all recorded. Of course, democracy worked in a substantially different way from how it worked once the 1872 Ballot Act came into operation, for the 1872 elections.
That is relatively recent history because all my grandparents were already born by the time of the Pontefract by-election, so a lot has changed in recent times. Indeed, it is as well to remember what has happened in the 20th century. When Churchill lost his seat in 1922 in the general election—at that point, he was an MP for Dundee—Dundee elected two members in a single first-past-the-post ballot, so it was actually a first and second-past-the-post ballot. Even though people had only one vote, they elected two members. When my mother first voted, she had two votes, because university graduates had a vote for a university MP as well as for their own constituency member. Indeed, the university vote was by single, transferable vote, which continued until the 1950 general election, so quite a lot has changed and continues to change.
What effect do such changes have on people’s engagement? The answer is, as far as I can make out, almost none. As regards international comparisons, the figures that I was able to conveniently find cover a period from 1960 to 1995—an arbitrary period, but it is probably useful. Top of the league is Malta, which in that period—without compulsory voting—had an average turnout of 94 per cent. Helpfully, the committee has visited some Scandinavian countries. In the period between 1960 and 1995, Denmark had 87 per cent turnout, Sweden had 86 per cent turnout and the UK had 76 per cent turnout.
In the United States, turnout in that period was lower, at 48 per cent. That is interesting because the US has a very different model of democracy. Basically, all power is held at the bottom of the heap and the states choose what powers to give back up to the top. However, that does not seem to make any difference to engagement, although instinctively I feel that I would be a little bit more comfortable with that model.
Has the member considered the model of town hall democracy that is very common in New England, and the levels of participation that that affords? Perhaps he will be arranging another Local Government and Regeneration Committee fact-finding trip?
I think that some of the smaller communities, perhaps in the West Indies or the Indian Ocean, would be the appropriate places to go. However, as I am only a substitute member of the committee, I shall be left guarding the gates back here.
We talk about turnout going down, but the turnout among those who could vote in the 1945 general election was 70.05 per cent, and the turnout in the 1997 general election was almost identical, at 69.39 per cent. So, what motivates people to vote is perhaps something quite subtle. The high turnout that we had in the referendum might be because people felt that they could change the system, which they wanted to do, rather than simply change the faces, which they were perhaps less interested in doing.
I have some useful proposals in relation to local elections in particular, and I know that the committee has not considered them. We talked about randomising the order of people on the ballot paper. However, there is a much easier way of doing it: have circular ballot papers, which could just be turned around, with nobody being at the top and nobody being at the bottom. That would work.
When I first voted, the party designation did not appear on the ballot paper. I wonder whether, particularly in local elections, it would be helpful if people voted only for people whom they actually knew, free from any influence of party—I say that as a member of a party for 53 years.
You must draw to a close.
I will close on the issue of a postcode lottery, which the committee touched on. I am in favour of variable delivery, which allows for core requirements to be met but does not require every community to do the same thing. We need strong messages that reinforce that throughout Scotland if we want people to be engaged.
15:11
I want to start with the point that Stewart Stevenson finished on, about variability of service delivery, which I think is at the heart of this debate.
One of the problems with what is before us today is that we are talking about flexibility and autonomy in local government rather than flexibility and autonomy in the delivery of local services. It is not just local government that is fundamental to the delivery of critical local services in local communities; we have a swathe of other public institutions and organisations that are beyond local accountability and local democracy, yet are as vital to communities as councils are. Health is but one example. Health boards are completely remote from the lives of the people they serve. They are accountable to the centre, yet they have to interact on a daily basis with councils that are accountable to local communities.
I like the member’s direction of travel. Does he suggest that there is a case for aligning a series of administrative boundaries covering different services, of which the health board might be one?
That would be something to welcome, because there is confusion and clutter in that area.
The other organisations that I was going to mention are the arm’s-length bodies. There are good reasons why councils have set up such bodies. There are financial imperatives in tight times that require public bodies to make savings. However, as Willie Coffey and others who have sat on the Public Audit Committee know, there are concerns about the democratic accountability of arm’s-length external organisations, which are responsible for huge sums of money. Confusion is also caused by the fact that councillors who sit on the boards of those ALEOs are not quite clear whether their responsibility is to the council or to the ALEO. In fact, as the ALEO is a legally constituted and independent body, they must be responsible purely to the ALEO. However, they have a torn identity, which I think often causes confusion. We have to find ways of introducing a more democratic construction there, as well.
One of the easiest ways of resolving that would be if this Parliament had control of things such as VAT and was able to deal with the rates situation, which is currently governed by the Westminster Parliament. If that were the case, there would be no need to set up ALEOs to make savings.
That is not necessarily the case. It suggests that the VAT system in Scotland would be constructed completely differently, but it is the existence of VAT that is the issue, not which body controls it.
There is another issue. I do not mean to be critical of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee or its individual members, including my Labour colleagues who sit on it, but there is a tension at the heart of all this. Earlier this week, in the debate on the Smith commission, Tavish Scott posed questions about the centralising approach of the Parliament in drawing more and more away from local communities. I remember the debate ahead of the foundation of the Parliament, in which assurances were given that the Parliament would not centralise or take powers and responsibilities away from local communities, yet the opposite has happened. I am not criticising the present Administration, as that has happened since the Parliament’s creation.
There is also a tension when individual members such as me complain about what we call the postcode lottery in the delivery of services. Avoiding a postcode lottery would inevitably mean the implementation of consistent service delivery throughout the country, which would fundamentally undermine what we are talking about—local communities and councils being responsible. In the debate yesterday and again today, members have talked about teacher numbers and class sizes. Neil Bibby reminded me that Labour talks about class sizes and staffing levels in secondary 1 and S2 for maths and English, yet, like what the SNP is doing in the early years, that is inevitably about taking power away from local authorities. Why should we not allow a successful local authority—for example, East Renfrewshire Council—to determine how best to deliver its services and be held accountable to its electorate if it fails to deliver a consistent, top-quality local service?
Will the member take an intervention?
No, thank you.
We need to make our minds up. Do we want local government to become more accountable to its electorate, as the committee report and other speakers have said, or do we simply want the Scottish Parliament to determine and dictate what the services and standards will be? There are contradictions and inconsistencies, and we need to make our minds up. Do we want a vibrant, healthy, functional, democratic, accountable series of local councils throughout Scotland or do we want, as Sarah Boyack suggested, organisations that simply administer and deliver what we, at the centre dictate? Until all of us, right across the parties, decide what the answer is and until we sort out our contradictions, we will make no advance on getting truly accountable, democratic local organisations.
15:18
I thank the convener of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee, which I joined last week, and the previous members of the committee for their extensive work in this area and the report that they have produced, which we are debating. Not having taken part in the deliberations surrounding the report, I am by no means an expert in the area; however, I am interested in the five strands that the convener outlined and how this important work was approached. I am especially interested in how the island communities are accommodated within local government structures and in the fact that one of the strands considered the level of legal flexibility and autonomy from central Government that local government should enjoy.
The convener and the minister, as well as Sarah Boyack, mentioned the commission on strengthening local democracy. On page 9 of its report “Effective Democracy: Reconnecting with Communities”, seven principles for a stronger democracy in Scotland are outlined. I commend those principles to the chamber. I will not discuss them in detail, but I will go through them briefly. The first is the principle of sovereignty lying with the people. The second is the principle of subsidiarity: that decisions should be taken as close to communities as possible. The third is the principle of transparency in the decision-making process, and the fourth is the principle of participation and community engagement in any development process. The fifth is about having spheres and not tiers of governance, and the idea that local government should move towards working interdependently and co-operatively, engaging with local people, rather than working in a top-down dictatorial manner. The final principle is that wellbeing should be at the heart of the decision-making process. All those principles set out a strong argument for how we should move forward.
Having not taken part in the deliberations that led to the committee’s report, I thought that I could best use my time this afternoon by describing a local project that I think typifies what could be achieved throughout the whole of Scotland. Indeed, the project might be enhanced by some of the provisions in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill.
As a local government councillor, I represented the area of Gowkthrapple; it is one of the oldest place names in Scotland, and means “cuckoo’s throat”. It is an area that has not had its troubles to seek: it features among the 15 per cent of areas with the most deprivation in the Scottish index of multiple deprivation and has the typical problems that stem from poverty and low employment. It has recently had the advantage of a strong Polish community coming into the area, but that has brought some challenges too.
In November, I was delighted to be invited by the Big Lottery Fund to Scotland’s celebrating communities event, at which Garrion People’s Housing Co-operative demonstrated some of the work that it had done at its CentrePoint hub in the Gowkthrapple area.
The co-operative is an Industrial & Provident Society and a fully mutual co-operative. It owns 256 properties in Wishaw and is registered with the Scottish Housing Regulator. It is responsible for the running and day-to-day ownership of the CentrePoint hub.
CentrePoint was established as a partnership project between North Lanarkshire Council, the Big Lottery Fund, the Scottish Government, Clydesdale Bank and Garrion People’s Housing Cooperative. They came together with a very tight brief for a new, single-storey building to meet the needs of local residents in Gowkthrapple and to offer a large amount of regeneration and support to the community.
The new building houses offices for the housing co-operative and North Lanarkshire Council; a locally run cafe; pre and after-school care; and a corner shop and local pharmacy. It also has flexible meeting rooms for use by a variety of local groups and features on the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland website as an example of an innovative design for such a project.
CentrePoint received a grant of £835,000 from the Big Lottery Fund’s growing community assets fund, which helped to finance the project. Other funding was provided by North Lanarkshire Council, the housing co-operative and the Scottish Government.
The hub is owned and managed by the housing co-operative, but very much for the benefit of the local people. At the project’s launch, Rona Alexander, the head of programmes for the Big Lottery Fund in Scotland, said:
“we invested in a community which we knew had the enthusiasm, drive and determination to make things happen.”
Will the member be returning to the committee report at some point?
I was giving an example of the type of project to which the committee report refers in relation to the importance of empowering local people. We can talk about the figures and the facts, and what local democracy means, but an example of that in action brings the concept home to members in the chamber.
I want to highlight the work of a young volunteer from the area, Patryk Topolski, who is a member of the Polish community. He is not only one of the nine Saltire award winners from among the project’s young volunteers in the local community, but he has been instrumental in a number of projects to integrate the Polish community with the people of Gowkthrapple.
I am glad that the report has been published and the work has been done by the Local Government and Regeneration Committee, and I look forward to our deliberations on the bill in the coming year.
15:24
I always enjoy seeing Stewart Stevenson about to take to his feet when I come into the chamber, because I know that we will get another history lesson. This time it covered a 200-year period and I found it very enjoyable and entertaining. I was only disappointed that the most profound recommendation that he could come up with was circular ballot papers. I expected something much more significant.
Stewart Stevenson’s comments on the postcode lottery chimed with those of Hugh Henry. Both members made very good speeches about the balance between ensuring that we have the standards that we want nationally and having real power and democracy locally. Do we want local administrators or do we want real democracy? That is the challenge that we face.
Hugh Henry put that across excellently and I will reflect on what he said. However, I disagree with him in one regard. The desire for politicians centrally to do away with clutter and confusion is misguided. Government in general is quite confusing and complex. What we need are clear lines of responsibility, to ensure that government operates effectively. If we just want clean maps and clean lines, we will undermine the effectiveness of democracy. The overriding objective is not to clear up clutter and confusion—if you want to describe it in that way. I would argue that effective government with real, local power is the objective in mind.
Sarah Boyack referred to Lord Smith’s opening remarks in the Smith commission report, which have done us a service. We have had quite a monumental debate over the past three years and it is now the turn of local government to be the subject of that kind of big debate, in which we will discuss what kind of local democracy we want and how effective we want it to be. There were two big winners in the referendum: people aged 16 and 17 who got to vote; and the island communities. I would like the third big winner to be local government, so that we can have real constitutional reform in Scotland.
We know the context. Kevin Stewart is right when he talks about the removal of ring fencing in the early days of the SNP Government. That was welcome, as it was required to give local authorities much more flexibility. I must say that the record since then has not been as promising. Members will know my views on the centralisation of the police and fire services. The real test of local policing plans took place when Highland Council declared that it did not want the nationwide policy of arming police to be applied in Highland.
Will the member give way?
In a second.
The council did not want that policy to be applied in Highland. The chief constable was able to ignore that demand—that expression of local democracy—which proved that we do not have local police services with local accountability any more.
Will Willie Rennie give way?
I will give way in a second. Wait until I finish this point.
If we are going to have true local democracy, it must mean something at those critical points.
Willie Rennie is giving one example. John Finnie and I visited Elgin very recently as members of the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing, where we discussed ward policing plans. We tried to get Elgin community council and the other community activists to give us one bad example in the plan for their area, but they could not and would not, because it was the plan that they wanted in place, with their priorities. Surely that is true community democracy.
I am sure that there are good examples of where it works. It worked in the past—
Mike MacKenzie rose—
Not just now.
It worked when local police officers could turn up to community councils and have proper engagement with them. That was there in practice. There will be good examples; I will give that to Kevin Stewart. However, there is a feeling in local government that power has been stripped away; that local authorities do not have the authority that they once had.
I commend the committee’s report, because it drew on a range of evidence from different bodies, including the Conservative Party’s commission, the Labour Party’s commission and the white paper. I was only sorry that it was unable to read the Campbell commission’s report. I am going to give the committee a flavour of what was in the Campbell commission’s report, because it was good work about trying to change local authorities for the better.
We recommended that the same principle that should apply to the Scottish Parliament—that it should raise the majority of the money that it spends—should also apply to local government, so that it has the same flexibility, accountability and responsibility at the local level. That means freeing up the council tax, allowing business rates to be set locally and providing for the majority of the money that is spent by local authorities to be raised by local authorities.
We also recommended the creation of new burgh councils. We are not proposing the creation of additional authorities or massive reorganisation. We are proposing that, when communities such as Auchtermuchty want to create a burgh council to run services in their community, they should be allowed to do so by local government. That chimes with some of the things that the committee said. For example, it said that local authorities should not just be one homogeneous mass and that there should be a much greater flowering of local democracy.
I am afraid that you must close, please.
I commend the committee’s report. A lot more work requires to be done in this area, but I hope that the report starts a big debate about the reform of local democracy.
15:30
I welcome Marco Biagi to his role as Minister for Local Government and Community Empowerment.
If this debate had taken place a couple of weeks ago, I would still have been a member of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee. I wanted to speak in the debate because of my involvement in the inquiry and the work that went into producing the report. I also wanted to offer my sincere thanks and express my appreciation to my former colleagues on the committee and the committee’s clerks. I think that the Local Government and Regeneration Committee’s clerks do a huge amount of work in an area that has a wide policy reach, and they are always willing—indeed, I would say that they go out of their way—to assist, and I, for one, appreciated their assistance. I know that the committee’s new members, Clare Adamson and Willie Coffey, are in good hands with its excellent clerking team.
I welcome the report and concur with what Kevin Stewart said about the move away from a centralising agenda. The fact that there has been a huge reduction in the ring fencing of funds, from £2.7 billion in 2007 to just over £200 million in 2013-14, highlights the extent of the change that has taken place in that area. I understand the politics of why the claim is occasionally made that the Government has a centralising agenda. The reduction in the amount of ring fencing highlights that the exact opposite is the case.
Furthermore, there has been a change in how the Government and local authorities work together. More joined-up working now takes place and legislation has been passed in the Parliament that has enabled local authorities to work in different ways from how they used to work. A good example of that is the introduction of self-directed support.
In my opinion, politicians—regardless of their colour—are custodians of the public purse and should always attempt to get the best value for the public pound. We need to work to serve the public to enable them to access the best possible services. Within the finite resources of the Parliament, progress has been made in making changes to service delivery, but we all agree that there is still a long way to go.
Despite the budgetary pressures that are a result of Westminster cuts, local government has been treated fairly under the SNP Government. The local government finance settlements have been maintained from 2012 to 2016 on a like-with-like basis, and extra money has been provided for new duties. That has resulted in a total settlement that, in 2014-15, amounted to more than £10.6 billion and which, in 2015-16, the current budget process is set to increase to almost £10.8 billion. The fact that the local government finance settlements have been maintained was reflected in last year’s vote on the settlement, in which no member opposed the funding package for local authorities.
Between 2007-08 and 2012-13, the resources within the Scottish Government’s control increased by 6.4 per cent. Over the same period, local government’s budget increased by 8.9 per cent. That demonstrates that strong financial settlements have been agreed with local government during challenging financial times.
Much of the work that the committee has undertaken has not been carried out in isolation. Over the course of the parliamentary session, it has undertaken a number of inquiries on public service reform. Its strand 1 inquiry was on partnerships and outcomes, its strand 2 inquiry was on benchmarking and performance measurement, and its strand 3 inquiry was on developing new ways of delivering services. The committee has also considered the implications of procurement reform for public services and community regeneration. Every area of activity seemed to fall into the realm of other areas of local government activity, which reinforced for me just how broad local government activity is.
The report that we are talking about focuses on a few areas. I will talk about strand 1. We considered whether size matters and how many councils, councillors and wards we need. Scotland has a lower number of councillors per head of population, so that was a legitimate area to consider.
When we read articles about how good local government is elsewhere, our judgment about what we have can be clouded. However, given our multimember wards and the improved working partnerships with other bodies that are a consequence of health and social care integration and the use of community planning partnerships, the committee considered that structural change to local government should not happen at this time. The evidence was clear that people outside academia and COSLA are less concerned about the number of councils and councillors, the size of wards and so on than they are about the services that are delivered to communities and the level of dialogue that they have with their representatives.
Willie Rennie talked about the referendum debate and votes for 16 and 17-year-olds, and I agree with him that there has been a significant increase in political engagement. We must ensure that that engagement continues. Part of that is about showing the impact that local authorities have on people’s everyday lives, whether we are talking about children’s education, a cleaner environment or protection for the vulnerable.
I am conscious of the time, Presiding Officer, so I will close. I welcome the report and this debate. I know that the committee’s work will continue to inform the debate about flexibility and autonomy in Scotland’s local government.
15:36
I am particularly pleased to speak in this debate because I am a member of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee. I thank and congratulate my colleagues on the committee and our wonderful clerking team. Given that we have produced our eighth report, I am sure that the clerks will take a well-earned rest now.
I hope that the report’s recommendations will inform the decisions that the Parliament makes on how to promote flexibility and autonomy in local government, right down to its lowest levels.
I know that I share with most members the belief that, on many issues, government is best when it is local. As Scotland prepares to receive more devolved powers from the Westminster Government, we should be considering what powers should move down from this Parliament to local authorities and from local authorities to community level.
In its report, the committee cited the president of COSLA, who told the committee:
“Power should lie at the most appropriate level. Sometimes it is appropriate for it to be at community level; sometimes at local authority level; and sometimes at national level.”—[Official Report, Local Government and Regeneration Committee, 23 April 2014; c 3388.]
In seeking to follow that suggestion, the committee explored five strands, each of which represented an important area that requires some sort of determination about where power should lie. In each case, the desire is to move power as close to the community as is appropriate and to enable local authorities to do so, too.
An important area on which we made suggestions was public engagement and interaction with local government, including turnout at local elections. The committee found that low levels of public engagement in local politics are largely the result of the lack of a relationship between citizens and communities, and local government.
Although the committee found examples of poor community engagement in the country, we also found good experiences, for example in Dundee. Does Anne McTaggart agree that some local authorities could learn lessons from what Dundee is doing on community engagement?
Yes, I most certainly agree with Kevin Stewart that we could learn lessons from some areas.
Part of the issue is that the powers that community authorities hold are not those that community members believe most affect them. I therefore agree with the recommendation in the report that powers be moved to the lowest appropriate level. However, part of moving power closer to communities is about seeking to engage them in decisions. That is also brought up in the report. Community members will be engaged simply by having issues of importance put under the authority of community bodies, but those bodies must also actively engage citizens. That will create two mechanisms of engaging people in the workings of local government.
The second area that we recommended for reform is the process by which local authorities and community government get their funding, namely the current council tax system, which we say should be moved away from. We recommend that, within this session of Parliament, steps should be taken to create a new system for taxation prior to the local government elections of 2017. That would best be done through an independent cross-party commission. The goal, which I support, is to fix a broken system and, in the process, to use help from local authorities to determine what is appropriate for them. That is inclusive government and not top-down direction.
Going hand in hand with the two strands that I have mentioned is the desire to outline a better way to guarantee for local government legal flexibility and autonomy from central Government. I note that the report recognises that structures that are put in place to affirm local control will be different throughout the country, or even within authority areas, in a way that is seen as fit for each area. That strand is ultimately about how the devolving of power to local government, and indeed the whole notion of local governance, should be framed.
The Scottish Parliament must have the goal of moving more power to local authorities, but that should not be an impediment to any community. Just as important in respect of that strand of the report is the determination that we will not create a process and we do not deem it appropriate to say who should do what. It is a local issue, and we trust local authorities to devolve powers to the lowest appropriate level.
I am happy to see the report from the Local Government and Regeneration Committee and I offer my support for the results, particularly in the areas that I have spoken about.
15:42
I welcome our new minister, Marco Biagi, to his seat on the front benches. I, too, am delighted to contribute to the debate, as a new member of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee and as a former councillor who was first elected to Kilmarnock and Loudoun District Council in the grand old days of the early 1990s.
I have read the committee’s report and the Scottish Government’s positive response to it, and I must congratulate the members and former members for all the hard work that they put into it. However, much of it comes as no real surprise to me, as a former councillor. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that we have not yet found the keys to local empowerment that we all seem to want. The report contains some really important messages on empowerment, accountability, flexibility and the desire to devolve budgets. Equally, there are messages about why some of that just has not happened over the years. In the convener’s foreword to the report, he uses the phrase “internal cultural restrictions”. All members who are former councillors will recognise what he means by that.
I was interested to read the comments by Professor Jim Mitchell on whether councils need constitutional protection to give them that sense of security from abolition or reform and, through that, perhaps adopt a more progressive approach to local innovation. He said that constitutional protection is not enough on its own, and I imagine that those of us who have been there can see that it probably requires more than that if councils are to embrace the empowerment agenda.
The report emphasises again and again the importance of empowering local people, but it also recognises that progress in achieving that has been slow. According to the report, people want to be part of decision-making processes, but they often feel that consultation can be tokenistic because the decisions have already been taken.
What exactly do we mean by “empowerment”? Is it about devolving decision-making powers, with some budgetary responsibilities thrown in? For me and I suspect for many local people—and, given his opening remarks, for the minister, too—consultation is not empowerment at all, and neither is handing over a little power and a budget to work within. It has to be more than that. Surely real empowerment is about giving local people the freedom to innovate and drive forward ideas and solutions that they might have devised for themselves, or about their at least feeling that they are genuinely shaping the decisions that their councils take. Who says that our councillors and officials are the ones who always know best?
I particularly liked the comment made by COSLA, which is highlighted in paragraph 52 of the report, that
“We need a new ideology, where democracy is designed from the bottom up”.—[Official Report, Local Government and Regeneration Committee, 23 April 2014; c 3375.]
That statement chimes with comments made by a constituent of mine who asked why we could not have a kind of people’s convention where ideas could develop and mature, turn into policy and then be delivered by a receptive council that encouraged such a process. As one witness pointed out to the committee, councils—and, to be fair, Governments—basically impose the changes that they want on the people. They devise the capital programmes for our housing, whether people need or want the upgrades on offer; and they determine the development of local settlements through their local plans, which are almost impossible for ordinary people to shape.
What would empowerment look like in those contexts? Perhaps local people could identify their own housing improvement needs, agree the programmes that they want and set up the contracts to deliver them, and perhaps it should be up to local people to determine how and whether their own communities expand with more or less housing and industrial developments in their settlements. Are such powers too dangerous to be left in our communities’ hands? Would we get inconsistency and chaos—or would we see the emergence of a confident community that valued that level of engagement and began to feel really empowered?
In his speech, the convener of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee talked about our democratic structures and the numbers of councils and councillors. As Stuart McMillan pointed out, the public had no interest at all in the size or structures of local government—they were more interested in the ability to influence matters that affected their lives. That, again, is about real engagement and empowerment.
I think that an opportunity was missed in the previous local government review, which really did nothing other than top up councillors’ salaries a bit. At the same time, it was claimed that the review would encourage wider participation in local government, with a new breed of younger and perhaps more professional individuals becoming councillors. However, that did not happen, and we still have broadly the same councillor profile that we have always had: mostly older and retired men, and younger councillors who still have to work in their day jobs to support their families.
You are in your final minute, Mr Coffey.
Given such constraints and the huge increase in their workload and obligations as a result of having to serve bigger council wards, I think that our councillors have worked wonders.
If we want communities to be truly empowered, we need to help our councillors and equip them much better to engage with the task. Perhaps we need to consider matching their salaries during their term of office, and perhaps their employers need to offer sabbaticals to allow them to serve their councils full time. I know that that will be not easy, but if we do not do that we will struggle to make the changes that we are hoping for.
The committee report is a fascinating read. It presents some familiar scenarios, but it also offers valuable insights into how we can deliver better local democracy for our communities. I am delighted to support the convener’s motion and ask that we note and act on the report’s contents.
Many thanks. Our final speaker in the open debate is Alison Johnstone.
15:49
I, too, welcome Marco Biagi to his new ministerial role.
Throughout the referendum campaign, I consistently argued that new powers for Scotland should not be about creating a mini-Westminster here in Edinburgh and that our Parliament should be brave and mature enough to devolve powers away from the centre and down to local authorities and beyond. We have to realise that Scotland is the odd one out in Europe. The scale of administrative centralisation is literally off the charts in some of the reports that I have seen—one can argue that local government in Scotland is a misnomer.
In the past 60 years, there has been a 92 per cent reduction in the number of local councils, giving Scotland the most concentrated local government in Europe. The mean population per council in Scotland is 166,000, whereas the European Union average is 5,600.
During the referendum, the Green yes campaign published a discussion paper with a plan for a system of smaller, truly local councils, each serving about 20,000 people. Such councils could be tied together by a larger strategic body, and they would be free to work together where that made sense.
Will the member give way?
Let me make some headway first.
Those councils would remain accountable and connected to their electors. That is not written-in-stone Green Party policy—we are open to other reforms that would increase and empower local government—but I am disappointed to see the committee’s report rule out any form of structural change.
Where would the finances come from to undertake the Green Party’s recommendation?
When we see turnouts of below 40 per cent—the previous local government election in 2012 saw a woeful turnout of 39 per cent, which was the lowest since 1975—it is time to take action. The Government has a duty to look at what may be required.
In 2007, the only local tax-raising power left with Scottish councils was frozen. Councils are largely treated like children: a child is given pocket money to spend, whereas an adult is allowed to earn a wage for their keep. It is time that we treated councils with more respect. We need to return a significant level of financial independence to them.
Our party’s local democracy paper suggests that councils should raise at least 50 per cent of their revenue through a range of tax-raising powers, such as land or property taxes. My recent motion on allowing councils to charge a visitor levy if they so desired gained support from only one member outside our group.
The Smith commission has proposed assigning the first 10p of VAT to Scotland. We could think of similar ways to fund regional administrations. Local government could be given a fixed, statutory share of national income tax. For example, municipalities and regional councils could be guaranteed 50 per cent of the proceeds raised by income tax, providing them with funding for public services based on population and an incentive to make local improvements to attract people to their area.
It is completely unfair that council tax banding has been left to become incredibly out of date. A centrally imposed freeze is disempowering and unsustainable, and it has not been funded in real terms. We urgently need to create a fairer, reformed tax.
Land value tax is our long-established alternative, and we look forward to engaging with the proposed independent commission in 2015, but we need a crystal-clear commitment from the Government that the reforms will be implemented.
In 2012, land reform expert Andy Wightman authored a report for Green MSPs setting out how a land tax could work in Scotland. He argues:
“Land reform is still unfinished business in Scotland, and land ownership continues to be rife with inequalities. A Land Value Tax would make three quarters of Scots households better off, tackle urban blight and land banking, and stabilise the housing market.”
The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations also argues that local government should not be where devolution stops. It wants to see more participative democracy, where people are directly involved in decision making. That is an important check and balance on power that is held in elected hands.
A lot of that movement of power can be done. Mr Rennie gave the example of Auchtermuchty. Nothing is preventing Fife Council from giving the residents of Auchtermuchty those powers—it is just that that is not happening. Therefore, the issue is not about new powers but about using the powers that people already have.
Absolutely. However, financial power is extremely important, and it is ironic that a Government that has campaigned so vociferously for its financial independence does not see the need to devolve that power further.
The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill is a good step on the journey, but culture change will be key. The SCVO says:
“Elected representatives need to nourish and support the role of these community organisations—not see them as a rival.”
I read the report of the commission on strengthening local democracy and felt excited by its principles and the radical vision for what local democracy could be like. That commission believed that that radical change is worth fighting for.
I thank the committee for its work, but its report appears to close down some of the possibilities. It appears to dismiss the input of COSLA and academia. I agree with Andy Wightman, who said that there is clearly a
“divide between those who think democracy works just fine in Scotland and are content to pursue policies that undermine local democracy”
and those who believe, as I do, that there is a need for
“fundamental reform in our democratic structures.”
Post-referendum, devolution is being scrutinised as never before, but it really is time that we give the same attention to double devolution.
15:55
The discussion should have raised some important and contentious issues. Although we may not all agree on how best to reform local government, I welcome the insistence from across the chamber on the need to take the debate further.
We have heard what some of the main issues are, from public disengagement and a lack of transparency in decision-making processes to overarching tendencies towards centralisation. The report offers very useful insights, which the Local Government and Regeneration Committee can consider in detail. It is important that, when we consider the future of local government, we look to examples of successful initiatives on which to build.
As we all know, centralisation can come in many forms. It is no secret that the Government has centralised power, as the many disagreements about COSLA membership have shown. Other examples set a worrying trend of centralisation, including the creation of Police Scotland, but those are for another day. The point that I am trying to make is that the report has been written at a time when councils face pressure from central Government. We must consider its recommendations in that context.
That said, the report is right to highlight that local authorities have the ability to devolve power to levels of government that are closer to local communities. As my colleague Kevin Stewart touched on, there is a considerable variety of organisations that are closer to communities, from residents associations, tenants associations, community development companies and community trusts to community councils. There are 1,200 community councils in Scotland and an estimated 12,000 community councillors—a considerable resource whose full potential remains as yet slightly untapped. There is also great variation in their effectiveness.
With that in mind, I welcome the report’s expectation that local authorities will draw up schemes to have power exercised at the lowest appropriate level in all areas. The key phrase is “the lowest appropriate level”. That can vary, depending on the powers involved and the particular circumstances of local communities. It is important that local authorities have the flexibility to work with local organisations to determine the lowest appropriate level to which to devolve functions.
One of the key areas that the report deals with is the level of legal flexibility that local government enjoys. It is right to highlight that there is a perception of control by the centre in local authorities, which could be addressed by greater flexibility. That could come in the form of flexibility in determining the most appropriate level at which to place responsibility for local government; there are a number of other policies and practices that we in the Parliament can help with.
The report says that, where legislative barriers are in place that prevent the differentiation of services to meet local needs, they should be removed. That is exactly the sort of flexibility that can energise local government.
Of course I agree that core services such as education and social security should be provided universally, but universal standards do not need to be enforced in all policy areas. For example, the economics of refuse collection service frequency will vary depending on the area—that particularly applies to rural areas, of course. The report is right to draw attention to the issue, and we should reinforce the point.
We can use the attention that a debate in the chamber brings to highlight that, as has been mentioned, councils are often afraid to use the powers that they have, that they are very risk averse, and that more could be done to encourage them to use the powers and flexibility that they already have—they probably do not even realise that they have that flexibility.
Finally, although the debate and the report have focused on tensions between central Government and councils and on the disconnect between local authorities and local communities, that is not the whole story. There are shining examples of success stories concerning partnerships between central Government and local councils that are achieving real results for local communities.
The most prominent example of that is the city deal, and particularly the city deal for Glasgow. In August, the UK and Scottish Governments announced that £1 billion was to be invested in Glasgow, with £500 million from each Government and a further £130 million from local authorities in the Glasgow and Clyde valley area. That example of the UK Government, the Scottish Government and local authorities co-operating to deliver massive investment is a model that I am sure we all hope can be repeated. Furthermore, it highlights the fact that the UK Government can have an important role. It is clearly in everyone’s interest to see Scotland’s communities thrive.
As the Scottish Conservatives’ Strathclyde commission commented:
“the Coalition’s City Deals programme is another example of how significant powers can be devolved closer to the citizens.”
However, there is a distinction here. City deals are a partnership between levels of government, rather than permanent devolution. That does not diminish the example, but it is important to remember it.
I hope that the report and our debate shed new light on the issues of centralisation, flexibility and autonomy for local government. Those are absolutely crucial issues for our country and deserve our unwavering attention.
A great number of important issues and potential solutions have been discussed, but I feel that they can all be summed up by one statement: local communities need their local authorities to have the flexibility to suit local interests. This Parliament should do all that it can to allow that to happen.
16:00
I welcome the report by the Local Government and Regeneration Committee and the debate that has taken place. We must first acknowledge the role and importance of local government and the army of councillors and public servants who are out there day in, day out, delivering services that impact on the lives of people in communities the length and breadth of Scotland.
When Anne McTaggart said that this was the committee’s eighth report, I wondered what difference the other seven had made. I am sure that Kevin Stewart will tell me more about that.
There is an opportunity to see the report as the starting point for a debate. As many other members have said, along with the committee’s report, we have the report of the commission on strengthening local democracy, which COSLA chaired. As Alison Johnstone said, the opportunity should not be lost.
I was the chairman of Fife Regional Council’s finance committee at the time of the previous local government reorganisation, and I went on to be the leader of the first new Fife Council. I am well aware of the bureaucratic nightmare that having to bring about a new structure through reorganisation would present. Kevin Stewart said that it would be a distraction. My experience suggests that it would be, but that should not be a reason for us not to look at how we do more.
The minister used the term “blossom”. I have skimmed through a lot of the book of the same name. We are certainly miles away from the vision that Lesley Riddoch presents of the type of local government that exists in Scandinavian countries. I have to confess that I have not read the Campbell commission’s report, to which Willie Rennie referred—I would welcome the opportunity to get a copy of it.
To pick up Willie Rennie’s example, despite what Kevin Stewart would have us believe, it is not quite as simple as Fife Council just recreating the burgh of Auchtermuchty.
Will the member give way?
I am sorry, but I do not have time.
We need to engage with the report of the commission chaired by COSLA and the committee’s report. One of the big things that came out of the committee’s report was the recommendation to look at how local government is financed, which will be a key issue.
I certainly welcome the fact that the Scottish Government has said that it is engaging with COSLA and taking a cross-party approach to how local government is financed. As Sarah Boyack said, that must look much more widely than simply at the council tax versus a local income tax versus some form of property tax. We must look in much more detail. One member said that the discussion has to be much wider; it has to be a discussion with communities across Scotland.
It is the easiest thing in the world for any Government to cut taxes. Some countries and Governments pride themselves on their low levels of taxation. However, very low levels of public services sit alongside that. We should have a much wider public debate on that, outwith politicians debating it in the chamber or elsewhere.
The minister talked about 16 and 17-year-olds having the vote. I think that in the Parliament we are united on trying to get the power for 16 and 17-year-olds to vote not only in the Scottish Parliament elections in 2016 but in the local government elections in 2017.
As an aside, I mentioned yesterday that elections for three community councils in my constituency had been triggered in the past few weeks, and the turnout for them was 22 or 23 per cent. One of the key points that came through in the evidence that the committee took was that, in countries where people believe that local government has real powers and strength, voter turnout is higher. We need to learn lessons from that. My view is that there is a fourth tier of government in Scotland, which is community councils. There are mixed views on that, but empowering that fourth tier more should certainly be discussed as part of the wider debate.
We must not simply bury the committee’s report but take it as a starting point and sit it alongside the commission’s report. We can use both reports to get discussion going more widely out there about how we finance local government and take more powers down to the community level.
Community planning partnerships have not been mentioned much. Hugh Henry talked about health, and we now have health and social care. We need to discuss more widely how we hold boards to account on those aspects and involve them. As Hugh Henry said, the key point is whether we are talking simply about giving local authorities money and telling them what to do or truly having local government so that locally elected people can make decisions at the local level and be held to account for those decisions when they ask the electorate for re-election on their performance. That is the key question that is coming out of today’s debate. The debate has been good, but let us now move forward and use the committee’s report and the commission’s report to talk about how we can have true local democracy in the future.
16:07
The debate has been quite interesting in that we have often touched on core philosophical issues of democratic principle. One of the things that I have heard most reference to from the different sides in the debate is the 50:50 finance balance, which I am sure we will continue to debate at length. It is interesting that that aspect has been linked to the commission, but I urge caution, because the commission might best be served by focusing on how we deal with the pressing problem of the council tax.
The balance between the Scottish Government, local government and local communities will continue to be an issue, so perhaps we should try not to put too much on it but instead to retain a narrow focus. We are open to any discussion on that, and we have certainly heard COSLA’s views. However, we should keep our feet on the ground.
Before I move on to all the things on which we agree with members—I agree with many members’ contributions—I will go back to Sarah Boyack’s comment that local councils’ finances have not been so hard pressed since the era of the Tories. Councils’ share of the Scottish Government’s budget amounts to 36.4 per cent, but we do not have to go back to the Tory era to see a smaller figure; we need to go back just to 2006-07, when the share stood at 34.7 per cent.
As Stuart McMillan was at pains to say, the financial pain is being felt all around. The Scottish Government has lost 10 per cent of its budget in real terms, so we should have a bit more of a realisation that local government front-line services are—proportionately—doing rather well.
The tax report was referenced by Cameron Buchanan, Alex Rowley and others, and I am glad to hear that there is consensus on it and a wish to buy into it. I was also glad to hear the comments about the importance of public engagement, because it is not enough for the five parties in the Parliament to engage on the issue and—who knows?—agree to come to a consensus on it; it is also important that we hear from the public and that they participate and feel that the process is theirs as well.
Participation has been a bit of a theme. Stewart Stevenson certainly made some interesting points. I always like to bandy esoteric knowledge with him, so I point out that, in 1907, Lavinia Malcolm became the first female town councillor, some years before the vote was given to women in parliamentary elections. That shows the possibility of innovation in participation in community-level representation.
Minister, I am sorry, but we cannot hear you if you turn round.
I am sorry.
I say to Stewart Stevenson that his example of a James Bond as a voter in Blofield might call into question the authenticity of the source. Perhaps he should have another go at Google searching.
It is true.
At the end of his speech, Stewart Stevenson touched on variability. That is an interesting area of discussion that was developed more by Hugh Henry, who I notice is no longer in the chamber. It concerns what happens if people fail and what happens in the differentiation of services. That is at the core of what happens if we empower local democracy. We must be aware that different communities have different desires and will create different structures while somehow reconciling that with the importance of universal services.
For example, Hugh Henry asked whether East Renfrewshire Council should be free to innovate on childcare. That is one issue. Would everyone who supports that council having the freedom to innovate on childcare also support giving a council the freedom to innovate on the national health service, which is cherished as a universal service wherever someone is in the country?
Does the minister agree that the introduction of the benchmarking tool will allow local authorities to innovate even more, because they will be able to learn from positive lessons from elsewhere in the country?
Yes, and there are definitely lessons to be learned from around the country. On Friday, I was in Highland on my first visit as the Minister for Local Government and Community Empowerment—I wanted to go to one of the councils that I know wants to have more engagement from Edinburgh—and I heard about some of the really interesting and exciting innovation there. Highland Council has a remarkable degree of delegated decision making at ward level. That almost suggests that we could set up burgh councils if we devolved power to ward level and, as the committee pointed out, there is nothing to prevent that from happening. There needs to be more sharing of such ideas.
Highland Council has developed a ward budget system but, the other week in Fort William, the committee heard from the people of Lochaber and the surrounding areas that they have absolutely no say in how those ward budgets are spent. How do we deal with that situation so that people are involved?
That is where we get into the complex matter of what happens if we create the electoral structures but still have a barrier to popular participation. In my opening speech, I pointed to participatory budgeting as something in which I have a great interest and which offers a chance for the person in the street to make their views heard in an intense way that is more than voting but perhaps less than having to sit on a committee. I would like a range of councils around the country to explore that widely.
I was very pleased—perhaps more than the Presiding Officer who was in the chair at the time—to hear of the Gowkthrapple example that Clare Adamson gave from her constituency. That is notable because it shows the variation, innovation and potential that exist. It stemmed from a housing organisation, and such bodies have been the anchor organisations for many such initiatives. I visited Govanhill, where I saw that a community development trust that is anchored in the housing association has been able to achieve a level of community empowerment that many other communities would envy and has done so despite a great many challenges that come from different communities overlapping in one locality.
What are communities? They are people who share an interest and communicate with one another, who are not always the same as all the people who live in one area. However much we debate the details and structure of our system of government, we must remember that power comes from the ordinary people who live in communities up and down the country and that it is they whom we are here to serve, whom we are here to represent and whose welfare and wellbeing we must ultimately be concerned about.
I now call John Wilson to wind up the debate on behalf of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee.
16:15
First, I declare an interest. As well as being a committee member and the deputy convener, I am involved, as people will see if they check my entry in the register of interests, in a community organisation that is actively engaged in real community empowerment where I live.
I thank all the members who have participated in the debate today. In particular, I thank the witnesses who provided the committee with oral evidence, as well as those who provided written evidence. I also put on record my thanks to the community representatives who gave us evidence.
The committee heard clear evidence from communities. In all our work as a committee, we have tried to speak to people in the communities involved, and not just to officials, elected members, academia and representatives of agencies. We have tried to get to the grass roots to find out what the reality is when it comes to some of the things that are going on.
The committee’s report has been produced in tandem with a number of other reports. As members have heard, this is the eighth report that the committee has produced this year. The committee’s work has concerned the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill. Many of the issues that have been identified in the report will reflect some of those that are being dealt with in other areas of work that we carried out leading up to the report. They will continue to influence our recommendations regarding the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill.
I turn now to the speeches that have been made in the debate. I welcome Marco Biagi to his new role as Minister for Local Government and Community Empowerment, and I look forward to a fruitful relationship between the minister and the committee as we pursue some of the issues that we have identified.
The Local Government and Regeneration Committee is unique. When the report was being prepared, out of the seven members of the committee, five had served as elected members in local government in various capacities. They have served as opposition members and, in some cases, in majority administrations. That helped to shape the committee’s work on the report that is now before us. Many of us have had practical experiences of dealing not only with the decision-making structures within local authorities, but with communities and the reality of what they wanted.
The minister gave a clear indication that he welcomed the committee’s report, and that he looks forward to pursuing some of the issues that we identified. He also referred to particular issues that were raised by some witnesses. Among them were concerns about ALEOs and their democratic accountability. He also referred to the island areas working group that has been established by the Scottish Government. We look forward to some of the developments that will come from that.
Sarah Boyack was right to identify the debate that took place in relation to the referendum and double devolution. If we want devolution and greater powers for the Parliament, we need to look forward to greater powers for local government, too.
Members need to consider the committee’s report carefully. We are not just talking about greater powers for local government; we are also talking about greater powers for communities. In many respects, local government does not automatically equate to communities—that is the message that the committee is trying to get over. When we are discussing the devolution of power, we must be clear that we are talking about the devolution of power to the grass roots, within communities. Whether we think of the Auchtermuchty example that Willie Rennie spoke about, or the Gowkthrapple example that Clare Adamson spoke about, we have to consider new and challenging ways to proceed.
I very much agree with John Wilson. I have suggested devolution from councils to their local communities. I also refer to the Crown Estate and to licensing issues going down to local communities, rather than just being dealt with by local authorities.
There are opportunities afforded to us to consider those issues. However, at the heart of all this is ensuring that communities feel actively engaged. Cameron Buchanan raised a number of issues, including how we engage with communities.
It is always interesting to listen to Stewart Stevenson, who gave us a history lesson about the voting system in 1872. On voter turnout, he gave the example of Malta, which had a 94 per cent turnout with a population of 400,000. Perhaps that high turnout is because they feel closer to Government than we do in Scotland. On Stewart Stevenson’s proposal for a circular ballot paper, I am sure that we can ask the commission and others to consider that.
I refer hugh Henry to paragraphs 142 and 143 of the report, which might answer some of his concerns. Stuart McMillan referred to chasing the public pound. It is about communities understanding what the public pound can do for them and how they engage in making decisions.
Willie Coffey talked about consultation being tokenistic. That is clearly one of the feelings that the committee has picked up from speaking to many community representatives. There is engagement and there are decision-making structures, but many people feel that the decision has already been made; consultations are tokenistic and local authorities have already decided what they will do and will do it anyway. We must ensure that local government carries out meaningful consultation and deliberation, and that it can provide evidence that it has taken on board communities’ views and issues.
Alison Johnstone raised the issue of the committee’s relationship with COSLA and academia. I refer her to paragraph 40 of our findings. Although there were issues, and there are continuing issues, for the committee in relation to engaging with COSLA in particular and getting evidence from it, we welcome evidence, no matter where it comes from. However, when we sometimes get blocked and we do not get the evidence that we are seeking, the difficulty is around how we then represent that in our reports. We have tried to engage with everyone in the process to ensure that we present to Parliament the views of wider society—including COSLA and academia. I look forward to working with the minister on the issues that have been raised in the report, as well as on other issues.
I will make particular reference to Alex Rowley’s comment about the 22 to 23 per cent turnout in community council elections in his constituency. I think that we are seeing greater involvement from communities because of the referendum—people want to get actively involved. I remind the member that in 2012, the turnout was less than 22 per cent in some local government ward elections. If we are getting a turnout of about 22 per cent for community council elections, I think that society is moving forward—there is greater engagement and people want that engagement.
Finally, we need to think about perception versus reality. We may think that we are doing things right; we may think that we are fully engaging with communities. However, the reality for many of the communities that we spoke to around Scotland is that they still feel left behind, excluded and ignored. We have to ensure as a Parliament and at local government level that we engage fully with the communities that we claim to represent and that we take forward the policies that they desire.