Current status: Answered by Shona Robison on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-34608 by Shona Robison on 11 March 2025, whether it is aware of any policy decisions having an impact on the fiscal burden on local authorities as a result of (a) non-teaching staff in educational services increasing individual staff costs and (b) a requirement for a quantity of non-teaching staff to deliver the same educational service, and, if so, how it has factored any such increased burden into its decision-making regarding (a) any such policies and (b) its policies relating to local government funding.
More frequent and meaningful engagement with COSLA and Councils, in the spirit of the Fiscal Framework with Local Government, was fundamental to the decisions that led to record funding of over £15 billion for Local Authorities in the 2025-26 Scottish Budget.
All new policy or changes to existing policy that have a financial cost for local government are routinely considered through the formal financial governance processes including assessment through the joint Scottish Government and COSLA Officers’ Settlement and Distribution Group prior to political endorsement from Scottish Ministers and COSLA Leaders.
As independent corporate bodies, it is then for individual councils to manage their own budgets and workforce.