Prominent local democracy campaigners react to proposals for local government reform
Reacting to the Scottish government’s local government reform proposal, Angus Hardie, chair of the Building a Local Scotland Campaign, said:
“Building a Local Scotland welcomes the Scottish Government’s proposal to replace our current councils – some of the largest in Europe – with 120-160 community authorities and 6 regional councils.
“We agree with their assessment that Scottish councils are currently ‘too big to be local and too small to be strategic’. On that basis, we welcome these guiding principles for proposed restructuring. Decisions are best made as close as possible to the communities affected by them, so we support wholeheartedly this agenda, if it decentralises power and strengthens local democracy.
“Scotland has long needed to fulfil the promise of devolution beyond Holyrood: that means giving meaningful powers to properly funded and structured councils that empower identifiable communities.
“We wait to see more details and look forward to playing an active role in the deliberations, but this is a positive first step.”
Ewan Aitken, former council leader at City of Edinburgh Council and supporter of the Building a Local Scotland Campaign, said:
“This is radical enough to be worth getting behind: a serious attempt to rethink the scale and structure of local government, with more councils and more power closer to the communities they serve.
“For too long the debate has been about whether reform is possible. This is an opportunity to ask what a genuinely local democracy could look like – and to be ambitious about the answer.”
Nordic Horizons Director, Lesley Riddoch, said:
“This comes as a very pleasant surprise given previous talk of centralisation. It is early days, and we still call for a Citizens Assembly to map out the important fine details. But the direction of travel gives Scotland the chance to mirror the genuinely local councils of mainland Europe, at last.
“In France, Germany and Canada (amongst others) some councillors serve both on local and regional municipalities. We think this practice should be more fully explored.”
Electoral Reform Society Scotland Director, Willie Sullivan, said:
“120-160 community authorities would be a real chance at genuinely local government for Scotland – close to the people and a bulwark against the continual sucking up of power by quangos and central government.”