1 week Ago By Martyn McLaughlin
A new network of councils across Scotland’s cities, towns, and islands is required to tackle the “creeping centralisation” that has undermined one of the key promises of devolution, according to a newly launched campaign group. The Building a Local Scotland group warned that Scotland had become “one of the least locally governed countries in the world,” and pointed to rural local authorities which span areas larger than some European nations. It has said that at a grassroots level, elected local representatives are being asked to make decisions about areas they “barely know,” impacting communities without any significant involvement from the people who live there.
The newly formed group, which includes the likes of former council leaders, academic, and trade unionists, argues that on average, Scottish councils oversee a population of 170,000 people, compared to a European average of just 10,000. It highlighted the case of Highland Council, which is physically larger than Wales, which has 22 local authorities, North Macedonia, home to 80 municipalities, and Belgium, overseen by a federal government, three regional governments, and 581 local councils. The group said six other councils, including Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute , and Dumfries and Galloway, are also larger than Luxembourg, which has 12 cantons and 116 communes, which operate similar functions to councils.
The group’s founding members include Esther Roberton, a former coordinator of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. She said: “When the Scottish Constitutional Convention unanimously agreed the final scheme for our parliament, it contained a commitment to decentralise power across Scotland and secure and maintain a strong and effective system of local government, which would embody the principle of subsidiarity. “That commitment has not been fulfilled by any Scottish government of any political complexion.
Indeed, a quarter of a century later, Scotland is even more centralised than ever. It is time for our parliament to honour the convention’s commitment and work to build a truly local democracy.” Another member of the group, Ewan Aitken , a former leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, added: “In 2014, COSLA’s pioneering commission acknowledged that democracy has been hollowed out over 50 years by the loss of truly local councils and their replacement with remote, regional-sized authorities.
“Ten years ago, the report was largely overlooked, but the problem of distant democracy hasn’t gone away. Scotland’s towns, villages and islands need power in their own hands to involve, invigorate and innovate.” Other members of the group include David O’Neill, a former president of COSLA, Peter Grant, a former SNP MP and Fife Council leader, Alex Rowley , the Labour MSP and former Fife Council leader, Eddie Barnes, director of the University of Glasgow’s John Smith Centre, and Richard Kerley, the co-chair of the Centre for Scottish Public Policy.
The Building a Local Scotland campaign will launch its local democracy declaration in Edinburgh today, a five-point mission which aims to ensure that devolution brings about a “return to genuine local democracy.” The plan advocates the creation of new “powerful” local, city, town, and island councils, without the “top down imposition” of elected mayors or further centralisation. It also backs the creation of citizens assemblies to gather evidence about what it called “Scotland’s local democratic deficit,” and recommend ways to improve the situation.
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