The main aim of the Mercat Group is to promote and improve local democracy. We argue this can best be achieved by ensuring decisions on the delivery of public services are taken at the lowest local level consistent with democratic and financial accountability. Our aim is very similar to that set out for the Scottish Parliament over 25 years ago in the heady days of the ‘Devolution Project’. Power was to be devolved not just from Westminster to Edinburgh but beyond to councils and communities throughout Scotland. The sensitivities around that aim were highlighted by the political storm around the suggestion that the new Parliament would be no different from a Council.
25 years on we can now form a view on how the Devolution Project is delivering for local democracy. The Council comparison may have been inappropriate, inept or mis-judged, but the implicit question about the relationship between the Parliament and Scotland’s councils and local communities remains valid.
Put another way; has the Scottish Parliament become Scotland’s largest council?
High Hopes and Ambitions
The Scottish Parliament opened on 1 July 1999. The high hopes and ambitions of its founders were that it would be:
– modern; a single chamber
– streamlined; powerful committees
– consensual; less adversarial politics
– community focussed; able to connect to ordinary people
– innovative across a wide range of public services, and
– strategic; power was to be devolved.
The last point was highlighted in the rhetoric of the Parliamentary Debates and especially in the speeches at the official Opening. Devolution was a project that would continue. Power would flow from Westminster to Holyrood and then onwards and outwards to the communities of Scotland. In short, nothing like a council!
Reality – Rhetoric meets Evidence
We now have a growing body of evidence on which to judge the progress of ‘The Devolution Project’. The Mercat Group and Reform Scotland separately submitted their views of the evidence to the Local Government, Housing & Planning Committee of the Scottish Parliament as part of the pre-budget scrutiny. We also shared an evidence session where, with Prof David Heald, we presented a unified view what the evidence tells us. The Official Report of that session can be read here.
Any reasonable, rational review of that evidence could only conclude that it has not been a success in terms of devolving power beyond Edinburgh. In fact, all the evidence points to growing centralisation of power in Holyrood. That is not good for local democracy, nor does it seem like good Governance.
A major part of the problem is what our late colleague Douglas Sinclair (when CEO of Cosla) termed the ‘spaghetti of boundaries’ of public service delivery agencies that have largely been imposed by the Scottish Parliament. His term was used by John Swinney in 2007 when, as Cabinet Secretary for Finance, he published the independent review of Scottish Executive budgets (the Howat Report). He said;
“The report highlights that Scotland has a crowded public sector landscape. This is causing duplication and lack of focus. In recent years, an organisational spaghetti of partnerships and networks has grown, alongside a hugely complex system of performance and monitoring.”
He promised a simpler, smaller government that would ‘declutter this landscape”.
Some changes were made to reduce numbers, although centralising Police and Fire & Rescue services to two new Quangos eliminated the historic local accountability of the emergency services. Other changes added new bodies and further extended the ‘organisational spaghetti’. They also made the task of co-ordinating policy much more complex. In fact, all changes post Howat have centralised power, functions and resources. We are still waiting for evidence of ‘declutter’.
The latest example of this centripetal trend is to centralise social care services into a new body that will effectively be part of Scotland’s biggest quango – the NHS – a proposal that is opposed by the NHS Trades Unions, COSLA and the Green Party.
Is this what the Constitutional Convention fought for prior to the creation of the Scottish Parliament? Did they want to see the Scottish Parliament aspire to be Scotland’s largest council?
What Now?
We argue there is a need to revisit and reset the way all public services in Scotland are organised, delivered and financed. We have suggested the creation of a Scottish Civic Convention to take forward the public conversation necessary to conduct such a review. There may be other options but the central aim should be to develop a transition plan to ensure decisions on the delivery of all public services are taken at the lowest local level consistent with democratic and financial accountability.
2024 is the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Scottish Parliament. 2025 is the 50th anniversary of the reorganisation of Scottish councils based the Wheatley Report and the creation of Cosla. The new UK government is proposing changes to local governance in England to devolve substantial new powers to the English regions, Metropolitan Mayors and Councils. Whilst the powers and responsibilities of Scotland’s 100+ quangos that have no local democratic accountability have expanded under the banner of devolution.
Changes over the last 50 years mean Scottish Local Government is in danger of becoming the delivery arm of central Government. Some would argue we have already reached that position.
Put another way, councils will become the local administration for Scottish Government policies, contrary to the two most basic principles set out in the Wheatley Report that local government
“.. exists to supply public services. These may be national services which have to be administered locally, or they may be services of a purely local character. The distinction is rarely clear cut, and we would prefer to put it that local government exists to provide services locally, on such scale and of such character as the nature of each service requires.
“Secondly, it exists to provide local government. This means that services are in a real sense locally controlled. There must be an element of choice exercisable locally. More than that, it is implicit that local authorities should in some degree provide a means for self-expression of local communities.”
This is an opportune time for Scotland to revisit our governance systems ahead of the next SP elections. The Scottish Parliament needs to become the Strategic force it set out to be. That means following through on the Devolution Project by transferring powers and responsibilities to the lowest level where communities can feel engaged in and responsible for their public services.
In short, it’s time to ‘sort out the spaghetti.’
The article is by Bill Howat on behalf of the Mercat Group, an informal network of former chief executives of Scottish local authorities with over 220 years of public service between them, including 70 years as chief executives. Bill Howat is a former Chief Executive of Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar