AS someone who spends most of his time thinking about the political economy of countries it is easy for me to forget the importance of local government.
I am not alone. Most people pay little attention to local politics. Few understand the motivation of those individuals who dedicate themselves to council politics, often with little apparent reward. And, when it comes to issues like tax, currency and economic strategy to which I dedicate much of my time (and commentary in this paper) local government is largely irrelevant. Despite all that I do very firmly believe in the importance of local government in Scotland, and not least because I have attended the COSLA conference of local authorities in Scotland several times and have seen just how committed those engaged in it are.
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I appreciate that commitment because I firmly believe that the accountability that local politics provides is key to the political revival that Scotland, like most countries, requires. In my opinion, local government should be responsible for much more than it is. Education, social care, planning, some smaller issues and any local economic functions that they want to take on is too limited a role for local government. That is most especially true when so many of these functions require integration with other policies, such as industrial policy, healthcare, employment, transport and care for the environment. Just thinking about these issues and their local impact would suggest local authorities should have a much greater area of responsibility.
What can be done about this? First, the more votes there are in local elections the more confidence there is in local government. Simply turning out matters in that case. Please do.
Second, Holyrood needs to be wary of its own inclination to centralisation. In European terms, Scotland is a mid-sized country, and many of those it can be compared with have much stronger local government than Scotland has. Since Scotland is also geographically a very big country that fact is, in itself, strong reason for supporting this, but the political will to do this does not seem to be present.
Third, local authorities need to be given more power to have an impact on their communities by both raising money by borrowing locally and investing it to address local need. Why can't, for example, local authorities be permitted to promote ISAs to encourage local saving for specific types of project? None of the issues involved in doing so are insurmountable, as the credit union community has shown.
Fourth, and in this case usefully, there is good reason for having decisions made locally in Scotland because uniquely in the UK, Scottish local authorities are elected by proportional representation and that has to increase the chance that good decision making can take place. It is only a shame that the model is not universally followed, and it should be talked about more.
Of course, strong local media, whether newspapers, or local or community radio, all help hold these councils to account. But that is a duty we also need to consider more than once every few years when coming to vote.
Local authorities were once the bedrock of social change across the UK. They delivered council housing, local transport, gas and electricity, schools and aspects of social care long before there was a welfare state. It was local passion, drive, ingenuity and politics that transformed many cities into better places to live and work. We need to believe that is possible again. But voting is the first step, whoever you chose to vote for, and in Scotland there is the unique privilege of having more than one choice. Please use it.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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