COSLA today commented on education reform as part of the Scottish Government’s Public Service Reform proposals.
The First Ministers publication of a proposal to move to fewer regional councils and create many community authorities creates extensive structural reform which carries significant financial, operational, democratic and service-continuity risks, with transition costs and benefits not yet quantified or thought through.
COSLA and Scottish Local Government has long supported reform, but reform that makes the most of the democratic spheres we have. We must recognise the separate roles but collective responsibilities we have to deliver vital public services to the people of Scotland. Doing so creates a Scotland where all children and young people can grow up feeling loved, safe and respected so that they realise their full potential.
The integrated services that councils deliver are essential to achieving this. COSLA is clear that structural reorganisation should not be the starting point. Scotland’s education system must instead focus on improving the curriculum, supporting children and families, attracting and retaining a highly skilled workforce, strengthening leadership and ensuring that responsibilities and resources are clear at every level.
Commenting, COSLA spokesperson for Children and Young People, Cllr Tony Buchanan said: “Scotland should be ambitious for every child and young person. Reform must close the gap between a good education system and a great one, while recognising that learning is inseparable from family support, tackling poverty, health, housing and the strength of local communities.
“Structural change is not an outcome in itself. Large-scale reorganisation without a clear, costed and independently tested business case could divert money, time and professional capacity away from classrooms, children and families.
“Councils are uniquely placed to connect education with the wider services that help children and young people thrive. We support reform that strengthens teaching, the curriculum, prevention, workforce planning, regional capacity and accountability, while keeping decisions as close as possible to the communities they affect.
“Our preferred approach is practical, proportionate and evidence-led: agree the functions and outcomes, establish the financial and workforce baselines, test stronger collaboration, and scale or legislate only where independent evaluation shows that change will deliver better outcomes, greater equity and stronger public value.”
COSLA comments on the Prime Minister’s speech on devolution
Commenting on the Prime Minister’s speech on devolution on Friday, COSLA Vice President Cllr Steven Heddle stressed the need for early and meaningful engagement with Scottish Local Government around any significant proposals for a model of regional empowerment.
Cllr Heddle said:“The Prime Minister has set out UK Government’s thinking around greater devolution to Scotland and to Local Government in particular.
“COSLA is strongly supportive of that principle of subsidiarity, and has been actively and positively involved in discussions around regional economic partnership working, albeit not the specifics of the Prime Minister’s speech today.
“The development of any proposals such as this must be based around meaningful engagement. COSLA stands ready to participate fully in any discussions with both UK and Scottish Governments around the future shape of local democracy in Scotland.
“Our position remains consistent – this must be about bringing decisions closer to communities, improving local democracy and delivering better outcomes for all. This should not be devolution imposed from the top down.
“Communities and vital staff delivering services day-in-day out must meaningfully inform the future of local services and UK Government must work with COSLA on any future devolution proposals.”
PRIME MINISTER ANDY BURNHAM’s SPEECH IN FULL:
It’s great to be with you. Thanks to the college, as Douglas says, for having us.
It’s good to be back in Scotland, to be here in Motherwell.
And I should say – I’m going to say this now, but I might regret it – the true north!
Please don’t tell anyone in Manchester that I said that.
You know I’ve created Number 10 North? Are you aware of that? Have you heard of that?
I know here you’ll probably call it Number 10 South.
And then you’ve got now Number 10 South South.
So you’re going to have to have your own way now of describing it.
But it is brilliant to be here.
I was in Scotland for the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in the summer and, can I say, what a job Glasgow did in stepping forward to host it. Really grateful to them, did it brilliantly.
I’m actually here more than you might think. I sneak into Scotland without you knowing. I was here between Christmas and New Year last year for Hibs-Hearts and it has not escaped my notice that Motherwell are currently above the former in the SPL.
Although, well I think there are some Motherwell supporters here, surely. I hope there are.
I care about Scotland and I am coming today with a big offer and in search of common ground.
When I walked into Downing Street in July, I said I wanted to do politics differently. Place-first not party-first.
Honestly, I meant it. I meant it and I arrive here in that spirit because people in Scotland, in my view, deserve better from politicians and politics, as they do all over the UK, to be honest.
So that’s why I’m here. I’m here in that spirit because I want to show that politics can be better and we can work in a different way, place first, not party first.
And I want to say something so Scotland understands this.
I left Westminster in 2017 to become the first Mayor of Greater Manchester because I had come to see quite clearly how Westminster didn’t work for the North of England, North West of England as well.
My work on Hillsborough had brought me to the same conclusion that Scotland had reached many years before us.
And I felt the same frustrations as Scotland, Scottish ministers, in my ten years as the mayor, because often the way we were treated wasn’t right, it wasn’t good enough.
So I want everyone in Scotland to know that my reason in going back to Westminster is not to carry on with the same old Westminster and Whitehall ways and go back to that, I’m going back to change all of that. That’s why I’m Prime Minister.
When I say I want good growth in every postcode, that means every single postcode in Scotland as well.
And what that requires is giving more power to people and places everywhere to change more things for themselves.
One of the most important examples of this that I have seen came not from Manchester but from somewhere not so far from here.
In August 2023, with the help of the ground-breaking Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, I visited FARE-Scotland at Bannatyne House in Easterhouse with the Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit.
And we went because we’d heard all of the reports about what was happening, and the innovation that they were doing in Easterhouse.
Many of our communities had the same challenges – unfairly labelled and, you know, given a certain reputation – and that kind of hangs over.
But we had picked up on the stories that were coming out of things that were being done to turn people’s lives around.
So we went to see.
I had expected to spend two hours there talking about policing, drugs and violence.
Instead, we only talked about empowerment and opportunity.
The need to stop communities being labelled and defined by the negatives and instead to celebrate their positives and the assets that they’ve got.
It was an amazing time. I’ll never forget it.
And also we talked about how to create personal pathways, very personal pathways, for each young person, individually tailored for them, working with local employers.
And then to help those young people take those chances up to get them the right clothes so they didn’t feel out of place when they were going to those opportunities and those appointments, or those interviews, and have their travel covered as well.
It was something I’d never really heard explained in quite that way before.
It was true extra mile, bottom-up, person-centred support.
Rooted in local values.
Run by the local community and the people on the estate.
And it worked.
Well, why wouldn’t it work? It would work, wouldn’t it, if you run things like that. That’s how they should be done.
So I took everything I heard that day from Easterhouse and I took it back to Greater Manchester and I used it to pioneer what we called the Live Well model in Greater Manchester.
It was all about moving away from top-down, tick box systems that no one trusts and sometimes can make people feel worse about themselves, not better, when they’ve interacted with that system.
It was about moving away from the often patronising approach of public services so powerfully described by Darren McGarvey in his book Poverty Safari. And if you haven’t read it, I would recommend it to you.
And it pointed towards a new approach based on trusting local communities, and let them sort things out for themselves, because they know the solutions that they need.
And lo and behold, just as Easterhouse had done, we began to achieve more for people than we could have imagined before through Live Well.
So I carry all of that learning with me into my time as Prime Minister, and I am really clear about the changes I want to see.
When I walked up Downing Street and into No10, I was determined to push power out of it – and into the hands of local people. That’s what this country needs, in my view, all over it. In all of the regions, in all of the nations.
To rewire the state, rewire it so that it works right across the UK, and every postcode is empowered to do more for itself.
So I will do that because in the past we saw too many people, too many places written off, powerless to fight the effects of deindustrialisation.
And I don’t think I need to say that in this room today, with the history that there is on this site with regards to the effects of deindustrialisation.
I don’t want anyone ever to be in the position again that this community was in 30 or so years ago.
And it’s the reason I wanted to come to Motherwell today.
The story of this area and this town gets to the heart of why I believe we need to do things differently.
You know, it’s important to talk to Pamela today as the local MP to understand that history, but also to understand how those challenges are still there, and we know they’re very real challenges, and we want to be able to empower people here to be able to do more, to soften the effects of those things, find new solutions.
What you have here is a proud manufacturing past, and the apprentices who are with us today are obviously taking that tradition forward, and we’re proud of you, and we know you’ll go on to do great things.
But you’ve been let down. Certainly young people in all parts of the UK have been let down by political choices made far away from here.
By people often who have no clue, really, about what life is like here.
So that is basically the history.
You know, in the past, if you think about this area, if Britain was building something big the fair chance was the steel would have come from here.
You know, it was the heart of an industrial Britain.
And this college, I think I’m right in saying, is on the very site where Ravenscraig once stood.
And in my youth, if I go back to the 70s and 80s, you couldn’t not hear that name, Ravenscraig, on the news, such was its massive importance to the country.
When it closed, it wasn’t just a works that shut.
It was a whole community which saw the pillars underneath it just taken away, collapse beneath it.
And that was a decision taken hundreds of miles away by people, without any real consequences for what that would mean for people here.
Taken by people who would never have to live with those consequences and see those consequences every day.
And more than thirty years on, I know that work is still ongoing to fill the Ravenscraig site, such is the hole that it left.
And I know that story myself, as well.
Because I represented a former mining community, Leigh in the old Lancashire coalfield, and I was the MP there for sixteen years from the early 2000s, just after the pits had shut in the 1990s.
It broke my heart to see the old miners shuffling into my surgery every week carrying oxygen bottles still struggling to get compensation for the damage that was done to their lungs
It pained me to drive past the wasteland around Bickershaw Colliery, one of the last pits to close in Leigh.
Nobody asked Leigh what was going to come next either.
No one in Whitehall went to Leigh and said, “Here’s what we’re going to do with transition”. Just gone.
And this is the way the UK has been run in our lifetimes, and it’s what needs to change.
It took so much, this country, from Motherwell and its people in terms of the building of Britain.
And it took so much from Leigh in terms of the powering of Britain, and then just abandoned them when life moved on.
So I am here today to spell out how I plan to do things differently as Prime Minister in all parts of the UK.
Taking power out of the centre, and putting it into places like this, empowering people.
Because that to me is just as important in Scotland as it is anywhere else in the UK.
All of the nations that make up the UK, including Scotland, are too unequal internally.
Like in England, public transport in Scotland is way better in the capital of Scotland than it is in any other city or town in Scotland.
Or if you look at high streets.
If you go to Edinburgh today, you’ll see around one in twenty shops lying empty.
But if you go to Dundee, it’s more likely one in five.
Again, not an accident.
It’s what happens when too many of the good jobs go.
When the spending power reduces, and then obviously the high streets suffer and the shops go.
And people in Aberdeen are living through that now, and they’re very much on my mind, and I’ll have more to say about that in due course.
If you look at population in Scotland, there are places that haven’t grown like the rest of Scotland, where if you say in the West like Inverclyde, the working population has shrunk.
And why? It’s because it’s what happens when young people can’t see a future for themselves in those areas, and then they move away to find it.
And this one should really give us pause for thought: life expectancy.
It’s wonderful to see the emphasis being put in this college, if I could say this to the principal, on brain health.
Really asking every student to think about health.
I think that’s such a powerful message that you’re sending.
But the truth is we need to do that because the health inequalities are still far too wide.
A man in East Renfrewshire can live, as I understand, on average seven years longer than a man in Glasgow, even though there is only ten miles between the two places.
It’s the same elsewhere, in all parts of the country.
You can just go a few miles and you can see the housing change, you can see the community change, and of course you can see then the health of the people is not what it should be.
And when people live in a country like that, where it doesn’t feel fair place to place, that’s what then creates the divides that people see, and then it damages people’s trust, and they don’t feel the country is fair to all people and to all places.
Because when you’ve watched the works go, when you’ve watched the jobs go, the high street become empty, and one government after another tell you that things will get better, why should anybody believe any of us?
And it means we’ve got to change first. Politicians have to change.
Write a new script, do things very differently, because it’s not been working, what we’ve been doing.
We spend a lot of time focusing on the differences between Scotland and England.
But what is perhaps more striking is how similar the problems in places across Scotland and England.
The same cost-of-living pressures and lack of good jobs.
The same huge gaps between the regions.
The same decline sometimes seen on the high streets.
And the same sense that where you live still has too much bearing on your life as a whole.
And the issue was never the regions themselves.
They never lacked potential.
Ambition…
Talent…
Drive.
It’s just that the country, at a national level – UK level, Holyrood level – has not often shared the same ambitions of those places and empowered them to achieve those ambitions.
For decades, the centre sown in London has looked past too many places.
And hasn’t trusted people in those places to make their own decisions about their future.
And that centre has also refused to give up power when it’s been asked to do so. It’s kept hold of the power even when places across the country have been desperate for more ability to do more for themselves.
Twenty-seven years on, you led the way on devolution here in Scotland with the creation of the Scottish Parliament.
And that was absolutely right.
But devolution was never meant to stop there.
It was never supposed to stop at the doors of the Scottish Parliament.
Obviously, there’s huge progress to look back on.
Public control of water…
Public ownership of rail…
Free personal care…
And these are all Issues very close to my own heart, and I applaud them…
But they were always meant – as I understand it, because I was in Parliament, as Douglas said, at the time with him – always meant to be the start of something deeper.
The foundations of a nation where communities had more of a say in their own future…
And where the norm was always to push power out until it reached every person and every post code.
Instead, we’ve ended up with the situation where Scotland, the most devolved nation in the UK, is itself one of the most centralised nations in Europe.
And I don’t say that to score points.
Genuinely, I don’t.
I say that because I believe we need to be honest about that if we really want to get growth in every post code, if we really want to renew every part of the United Kingdom.
That’s why one of the first things I did as Prime Minister was start shifting that power out of Westminster.
And already we’re giving local leaders in England more power and control over transport…
More say over skills and investment…
More freedom to build an economy around the strengths of their communities.
We’re finally making the centre work for people…
Rather than asking them to work around us.
And this is what I mean by devolution by default, and deep devolution.
Not swapping power from one parliament to another…
But going deeper.
Putting power down into the regions…
Control back into the hands of the local people who know how to use it best.
And as our English regions see the benefits…
I want those same opportunities for Scotland and Scottish regions.
The chance to stop looking back what was once here…
And start looking forward to what’s coming next.
And that does mean something different for both governments, the UK government and the Scottish government.
This is the heart of what I wanted to say to you today.
It means working together in a different way and backing places in a different way across Scotland, and giving them the necessary investment to bring forward a new vision for the reindustrialisation of Scotland that these young people who are with us today can feel hopeful about.
It is great that the Scottish government has this week agreed to match the UK government’s £10 million to create two defence technical excellence colleges, and Douglas informed me of that news today.
So there will be one in the east and one in the west.
That’s an example, I think, of how it should be done.
The UK government and the Scottish government making something bigger than it might otherwise have been if one of them had done it alone.
And credit to Douglas and John Swinney for working together on that.
It means Scots trained for well-paid, skilled jobs in a defence sector that already supports 12,000 jobs here in Scotland
My government’s job is to do whatever we can to support more of those high ambitions in every part of Scotland.
It’s why we’re backing Scottish shipbuilding.
It’s why we’re working with the Scottish government to help secure new investment and new opportunities for the Grangemouth site. And we will keep working hard at that.
And it’s why we are committed to ensuring the next generation of energy jobs, created right here in Scotland.
Because I know how much these industries matter to people.
To workers.
To their families.
And to the communities they have built around them.
It’s also why I am working on a new deal for food and farming at the EU-UK Summit on the 20th of November.
I am working closely with our EU partners in relation to that. Why? Because it would have hugely beneficial impacts on the food industry and farming here in Scotland.
And it is why I want to see a change in public procurement across the UK and working with the devolved governments, the same there.
When I was Mayor of Greater Manchester, I put buses back under public control, and it meant I had the ability to choose where the buses we bought were built, and I chose Scotland.
I chose to back Scottish manufacturing.
I rejected the old Whitehall way of always going to find the cheapest contract anywhere in the world, because I recognised if you paid even a little more, it would still have circular benefits for British communities.
So I was determined that the buses on the roads of Greater Manchester today were built by Alexander Dennis in Falkirk.
And I did that because I knew it would sustain those communities. And Euan was there with me when we announced some of those contracts.
I want all public procurement in the UK to work like that, to follow the same approach and back a plan, a solid plan, to reindustrialise all of Britain.
But, from there, we have to allow our own regions to forge their own future, and that means Westminster and Holyrood learning to let go and make decisions about what comes next themselves.
The good news is Scotland’s regions already have so many strengths to build on.
In Dundee, you’ve got a world-leading video games industry.
Across the Highlands and the Islands, you’re building a new space industry, with new launch sites emerging.
In Edinburgh, a thriving fintech sector.
The list goes on.
Imagine what more places could achieve if they had greater control and investment to help those businesses grow.
If the people who understood those industries best had more say over where the money went, and which opportunities they went after, they would be building more stronger technical education paths, education paths into their emerging sectors.
We’ve already seen glimpses of what that can look like.
An approach that puts local businesses, universities and councils in the driving seat has seen companies like Chemify turn groundbreaking research into real manufacturing jobs in Glasgow.
And that’s the sort of thing I want to see so much more of.
It’s why we’re putting a billion pounds into research and innovation across the UK in the coming years.
But I don’t want all the decisions about where that money goes being made in Whitehall.
We’re already giving English mayors more control over funding for local innovation.
And I want to explore now how Scotland’s regions can have the same powers to decide where more of that research and development investment goes.
Because the people building these industries, they know where those industries can go in the future.
Our job isn’t to stand in their way…
It’s to give them what they need to go after those opportunities.
And there’s one more thing.
Because none of this means very much if the people growing up in these communities don’t get the chance to take up the opportunities that come out of it.
We can announce all the investment we like and all of the big numbers.
We can build factories…
We can win contracts…
We can create new businesses.
But if a young person down the road growing up here can’t get the skills or support they need to work there…
Then we haven’t got it right.
And right now, too many young people are missing out.
I mean, none of us feel comfortable about these statistics, and it’s the same in England, I’m not pointing the finger at Scotland.
But the fact is around one in six young people here are not in education, employment or training.
It just isn’t right, is it? It isn’t good enough.
All of those young people experiencing that feeling of less hope and not having a sense of direction for the future.
I’ve been clear that care for people is at the heart of everything that I’m about and what my government will do.
And I won’t have a country where we get comfortable with the idea of kids in their 20s just being there on benefits.
I won’t. I never will accept that some are just written off, given the feeling that they don’t matter or they’re not seen.
I don’t believe the answer is another scheme designed in the centre – another top-down scheme – and then kind of imposed on every community in the way that we’ve done it in the past.
It won’t work again. We’ve heard it before.
The review led by Alan Milburn is challenging us to look at this very differently.
To build a system based on the Easterhouse principle of names not numbers.
Build it from the bottom up.
Let communities build it. They know best.
And this is what I’m here to say. I think the time has come for deeper devolution in Scotland to empower all of the proud places across this wonderful nation, every single bit of it.
More power to do more, and that unlocks a feeling of positivity that you can do something to change the place where you live.
That’s what I want to see. More power to give people the support they need to access opportunities as they become available in new industries.
And, crucially, treat them as an individual.
I come back to that phrase, names not numbers.
That’s what you can do when you work from the bottom up, as they did in Easterhouse.
You can just think about the person in front of you, not sometimes the “computer says no” approach where you just give them bad news.
Come at it a different way, see what they’ve got, and then help them unlock all of that potential.
Don’t see them as a problem to be managed via a programme designed and implemented from Westminster or Holyrood.
Because the barriers a young person faces in Glasgow, they won’t necessarily be the same as someone growing up in the Highlands.
And the opportunities in Dundee won’t be the same as those in Lanarkshire. That’s just a fact.
I want to work with the Scottish government and Scottish local government to join up colleges, employers, employment support and local services.
And just like Scotland did in Easterhouse.
And just like we did in Greater Manchester, let’s create a new way of supporting people.
That’s the vision everybody. I hope it resonates: a revitalised Scotland in a reindustrialised UK, where every region plays their part, and there are new paths for people in every post code across the UK.
I want all areas of Scotland to be part of that and to feel the possibility that they can be part of that, to play their part.
And I open out a hand to the Scottish government, perhaps not in a way that people in my job have come and done in the past, but I do.
Because I am long in my political career now, and I know enough now to know that tribal politics and point-scoring in the end doesn’t get you anywhere
Politicians like to do it, but the public can’t bear it because it just doesn’t work.
Problem-solving, not point-scoring is what I said when I walked up Downing Street and I mean it, and I’m going to stick to it. And you can all hold me to account on it.
I know progress has been made here over the last decade with the City Region Deals.
But it is time to think about what comes next.
And how we build on them for the next generation.
We need to look at the resources and decision-making powers that sit at the regional level in Scotland so that no Scottish city regions are left behind.
And I know the Scottish government has also announced a long-term programme for local government reform.
But, if you ask me, we’ve got to move faster and we’ve got to do more.
Growth won’t wait.
And if we don’t move now, Scotland could lose out.
There is a risk that some of the towns and the cities become underpowered when some of the towns and cities of the North of England are going the other way and starting to power up, and I don’t want to see that as Prime Minister.
I want everywhere to do well. And I think everywhere can do well.
I do want good growth in every postcode here and the rest of the UK.
And I want to work with the First Minister to deliver it.
Because, the fact is we won’t agree on everything and we’re not going to and we shouldn’t try because there are some things we will disagree on.
But that does not mean just because you can’t agree on everything it doesn’t mean you can’t agree on anything.
We can agree on some things, and I know that because I’ve worked with John over a long period of time as well.
In my mind, the real question is not whether we should try and work together…
The real question is why on earth we wouldn’t we?
It would only be party politics that would stop that, and that’s not a good enough reason not to try and work together.
So today I want to make a serious and genuine offer to the Scottish Government.
I want to move on from the old politics of conflict…
To bring people together….
Across governments and in Scotland…
Alongside Number 10 North….
Or Number 10 South to you…
And in the immediate months ahead, I want us to design a new model, together, of regional economic empowerment across all of Scotland.
One that puts control where it should be, in the hands of local people.
And if it’s going to really mean something, it has to be thorough.
At the UK-level, we are looking at how we can devolve innovation, enterprise and employability funding so that that can be used to be matched to the strengths of Scotland’s people and places to create new industries and jobs.
And let me just be really specific about this.
It goes back to what I said about that book, Poverty Safari.
Because I read that and it had a big impact on me.
You know, it makes people feel really remote, doesn’t it, from the powers that be and those making decisions?
So I’m going to be specific and make an offer today.
An offer of DWP devolution.
I want to offer Scotland a model of localised employment support, similar to the one in England but obviously shaped by Holyrood and one that’s right for Scotland, not repeating that.
Because that’s a classic example of where the UK government should work with the Scottish government.
If you want the best employment support, not a tick-box system, then it has to go deep. It has to go right down. In other words, it has to be based on the Easterhouse principle. Has to be.
Names not numbers. If it’s not based on that, it won’t work. It will just be repeating the same system in a different way.
But I want to give Scotland the power to take the Easterhouse model nationwide here
Not a project on one estate, but the way we support everybody, everywhere.
And we should absolutely explore how to give Scotland’s regions the ability to develop the skills, the transport systems and investment, the infrastructure, the housing, everything they need to make sure the areas here are set up to deliver their full potential.
So in a couple of weeks, the National Economic Council will meet with the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales, and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and we will do that for the first time since I became Prime Minister to put that offer on the table and to see if we can work out a plan together.
I think that feels different. I hope you sense that too as you hear me lay it out.
And my message to John is simple:
I want to push economic power out into the regions of Scotland.
Do you? Do you?
Because, if you do, let’s agree on it. Let’s agree a new process, working with Douglas and working with John’s team. Let’s agree on a new proposal that’s right for Scotland, and we work together on it.
Let’s have both of Scotland’s governments coming together with a joint ambition to push power out from the centre – from Westminster and Holyrood – and put it into the hands of local people.
And together, let’s reindustrialise Scotland.
Because I absolutely know that it can be done.
And I’ll finish on this point, you’ll be glad to hear. I’ve had a lot to say, and I wanted to say it directly so you understood fully where I am coming from.
Here’s the thing, how much time have we wasted – and I’m thinking about my visits as a politician to Scotland – how much time have we wasted just debating what differentiates us, rather than saying, right, what can we agree on and let’s talk about that, rather than talking about the other stuff.
And I think the time has come for that.
The country is not in a position to carry on putting politics before places and politics before people.
It’s not in a position. We can all see and feel that.
We need to build our prosperity everywhere.
We need to get the growth going everywhere.
And that’s the thing. If we get this right in this moment, we will all spend more time in the years ahead talking about the exciting things that are happening in all of the different places in Scotland, and less about politics and political dramas.
And after all, isn’t that the best thing of all that politicians could do for the people, to stop you having to worry about politics and all of us talking about how we build a better future together?
So thank you for listening, everybody. Thank you for letting me speak to you today. I am really taken by the fact that so many people are here, so many people are listening.
Is there a feeling that we make this a moment of change? Is that what people want?
And do you think you speak for people around Scotland? Does everyone want a moment of change? The two governments working together?
The Institute for Health Equity’s new report A Fairer, Healthier Scotland: The Collaboration for Health Equity reinforces that health inequalities are largely driven by the conditions of daily life that shape health, including income, housing, work and education, rather than access to health services alone.
The Collaboration for Health Equity in Scotland (CHES) is a partnership between Public Health Scotland, University College London’s Institute of Health Equity (directed by Professor Sir Michael Marmot) and three collaborating areas: Aberdeen City, North Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire.
Each area utilised local evidence to develop their own priorities to reduce inequalities, with a shared emphasis on prevention and working in partnership.
COSLA’s Spokesperson for Health and Social Care Cllr Paul Kelly commented: “Through our unique position close to communities, Local Government already has a strong understanding of the wider social, economic and environment determinants which act as the building blocks of health.
“This report reaffirms that empowering local authorities to develop place-based solutions makes a positive difference to people, families and communities, preventing issues before they arise and reducing inequalities in outcomes.
“As a joint sponsor of Public Health Scotland, COSLA will explore how we can build on this successful approach, creating the conditions for more people to live longer, healthier and fulfilling lives.”
A Fairer, Healthier Scotland: The Collaboration for Health Equity is an independent assessment authored by University College London’s Institute of Health Equity outlining progress and opportunities arising from the Collaboration for Health Equity in Scotland.
The first phase of the programme ran from 2024 to 2026 and aimed to better understand barriers to reducing health inequalities and to test practical approaches for improving health equity.
Child poverty remains a key priority for Local Government. Read more from COSLA’S Children and Young People Spokesperson, speaking on Challenge Poverty Week 2026:
Child poverty continues to be a key priority for Local Government. Despite unprecedented financial challenges, local authorities remain firmly committed to our shared goal under the Verity House Agreement: tackling poverty — particularly child poverty — and delivering vital services and support to children and families in need.
Commenting, Councillor Tony Buchanan, COSLA Spokesperson for Children and Young People, said:“On Challenge Poverty Week, I would like to take this opportunity to thank colleagues across Local Government for the vital work they do every day to support our children – it is important that we can continue to recognise their dedication.
Child poverty is a cross-cutting issue that pervades across all council areas with latest figures estimating around 2 in 5 people in Scotland live in very deep poverty, meanwhile relative child poverty remains at 21%.
Local Government is at the frontline of tackling poverty. Every day, our councils work to boost incomes, provide vital services such as housing and transport, and deliver key interventions such as free school meals, and the Scottish Attainment Challenge.
However, we know we have more to do. COSLA will continue to call for evidence based whole‑family, community‑centred support, a balance between universal and targeted provision, and flexible and sustainable long-term funding so councils can build on and accelerate the vital work they already undertake to tackle poverty in their communities. COSLA will also continue to lobby for meaningful multi-year settlements for local government and our partners that enable preventative investment for children and families.
Despite the financial pressures facing councils, local authorities remain strongly committed to our shared priority under the Verity House Agreement to tackle poverty, particularly child poverty, and to deliver a range of services and support children and their families in need.
A holistic approach must be taken at the local and national level to ensure our approach is person-centred and utilises the lived experiences of local families, particularly those in priority groups, to overcome barriers and address specific challenges faced by those families within their community context. This requires adequate funding for local authorities, who are best placed to target provision for their local contexts.
The paper sets out how Local Government is already helping to address the impacts of poverty through action on the housing emergency, delivering free school meals and funded early learning and childcare, supporting households affected by in-work poverty, and helping people overcome barriers such as a lack of affordable transport
Challenge Poverty Week 2026 runs from Monday 6th – Sunday 11th October with events taking place across Scotland. Including an Elected Members Seminar on Wednesday 7th October at 2pm hosted by Cllr Chalmers, Community Wellbeing Spokesperson.
Such a change could involve a transfer of legal responsibility from local authorities to NHS Boards. The First Minister has indicated the Scottish Government’s intention to also replace the current 14 territorial NHS Boards with two strategic health boards.
Social care and social work services in Scotland are currently operated through local Health & Social Care Partnerships, which bring local authorities and NHS Boards together to ensure integration in the planning and delivery of community health & social care services.
The Scottish Government’s Programme for Government proposals have been considered by Council Leaders at recent meetings on the 11th and 25th of September, where Councillors have expressed serious concerns regarding the impact of the social care plans.
Commenting today (2nd October 2026), COSLA’s Health & Social Care Spokesperson, Councillor Paul Kelly said:“Individuals are shaped by the people, the buildings, the services and society around them.
“At its heart, social work and social care support are about seeing a whole person and supporting them to live a full life in the community. Social care and social work play an essential role in supporting people to retain their independence, often in their own home, and to help people live well.
“A proposal to incorporate social care into a large health infrastructure could risk medicalising disability, care and support, instead of building on progress towards independent living.
“Social care and social work must be seen as an equal partner to the NHS, not subsumed within it.”
People needing support with their mental health and wellbeing will get access to help closer to home, including through new walk-in hubs and 24/7 emergency response teams.
Developed in partnership with COSLA, the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Delivery Plan seeks to improve mental health support and services over the next three years.
The plan also responds to pressures on emergency services and a rise in the complexity of cases being presented to mental health professionals and the wider workforce.
Commitments in the plan include:
expanding community-based mental health support including the development of walk-in mental health hubs like SAMH’s ‘The Nook’, giving people access to local support without a referral
increasing the 24/7 mental health support provided by the Mental Health Triage Cars, specialist emergency response vehicles currently operating in Glasgow, Inverness and Dundee, to every region in Scotland
growing Scotland’s NHS 24 Mental Health Hub to include Psychological Therapies reducing pressure on A&E and other emergency services
developing a new approach to support adults with neurodevelopmental needs
Speaking during a visit to a healthy living centre in Wester Hailes, which offers local mental health support, Minister for Mental Wellbeing Maree Todd said the plan fulfilled a Programme for Government commitment.
She added: “Good mental health underpins not just good health outcomes but can make the difference to someone being able to access and keep a job, their ability to focus and do well at school, and shape positive relationships throughout their life.
“This refreshed Delivery Plan is part of wider system reform and represents a joint commitment from national and local government to take action to improve the mental health of our population.
“We need a system that can adapt to meet different needs across a person’s life, regardless of where you live. Key to this is providing support and early intervention, that’s why services offered at places like Wester Hailes Healthy Living Centre are so important, giving people somewhere to walk in and get help for common mental wellbeing issues without needing a referral.”
COSLA Health and Social Care Spokesperson, Councillor Paul Kelly said: “Local Government plays an important role in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our communities.
“As we seek to challenge poverty, offer quality housing , greenspace and education for example we can help prevent people becoming, or getting more unwell.
“We also provide a range of services that directly support people with their mental wellbeing. This sits alongside the crucial work of the NHS and the third sector in providing the mental health and wellbeing support and care people need.
“I welcome our new, joint delivery plan, which aims to build on this whole system approach as we work together to help people achieve the best mental health and wellbeing possible.”
Alcohol and Drugs Minister Maree Todd has raised concerns about an ‘increasingly toxic and unpredictable drugs supply’ in Scotland and has said the government will continue to prioritise a public health response to drug deaths.
It comes as new figures from National Records of Scotland show there were 1,133 drug use deaths in 2025, an increase of 11% compared with the previous year.
Cocaine was implicated in over half of all drug use deaths in 2025 (52%, or 589 deaths), an increase of 23% compared with 2024. Nitazenes, a group of highly potent synthetic opioids , were implicated in more than one in five drug use deaths (22%, 247 deaths).
Speaking during a visit to In Cahootz, an initiative in Glasgow which supports people affected by substance use through creative activities and building community connections, Ms Todd said: “My heartfelt condolences go out to everyone who has lost a loved one to drug use. Each and every death is a tragedy, and even more so because every life lost to drug harms is preventable.
“Against an increasingly toxic and unpredictable drugs supply, this rise is deeply concerning and unacceptable. The increase in deaths involving cocaine, and the continued threat from dangerous synthetic opioids like nitazenes, must drive more coordinated action across the country.
“We have taken important steps forward, including funding more than 1,100 residential rehabilitation placements last year and widening access to treatment and life-saving naloxone. However, despite these policy interventions, and the actions of our valued frontline workers, it is clear we need to do much more to reduce this tragic loss of life.
“Our new Alcohol and Drugs Strategic Plan will strengthen surveillance, deepen links between treatment, housing and other services, and target support at the communities most at risk. I have also announced today that Scotland’s first local drug-checking service will open in Glasgow this October – building on the UK’s first safer drug consumption facility.
“Whilst we are using every lever available through our devolved powers, it is clearly now vital that the UK Government work with us to transfer the greater powers over drugs policy that we require to treat drug harms fully as a public health issue.”
In Cahootz Creative Director Kate Black said: “The National Mission funding has allowed us to expand the range of activities available through our Creative Citizens Project.
“Taking part in creative activities can increase confidence and give people a sense of purpose and belonging. Building connections and becoming an active part of a community can play an important role in recovery.
“Our project helps people develop those connections and supports them to build a better quality of life.”
THE POVERTY ALLIANCE commented: “In a just Scotland, no-one would lose their life to drug addiction and everyone would have quick and efficient access to addiction treatment that works for them.
‘People living in the most deprived communities in Scotland are around 15 times more likely to experience problem drug use, compared to people in the least deprived communities. Reducing drug deaths means reducing poverty.
‘That means redesigning our economy so that people are able to access decent work, and investing in our social security system and public services, so that people have the income they need to live in dignity and security.
‘Above all, we need to treat people with the dignity, respect, and compassion they deserve.’
As part of recovery month, COSLA’s Spokesperson for Health and Social Care, Cllr Paul Kelly, reflects on the key role local authorities play in preventing harms from drugs and alcohol and supporting people to recover:
Across Scotland, unacceptably high levels of drug and alcohol related harms continue to have profound impacts on our communities. Behind each life lost is a person, their family, friends and colleagues. As a small but diverse country, many of us will know personally how the effects of drug use pervade our lives and affect whole communities.
Earlier this year, COSLA Leaders agreed the new Strategic Plan for alcohol and drugs, Preventing Harm, Promoting Recovery – the first time Local and Scottish Government have agreed shared ownership over this critical challenge we face as a nation. The Strategic Plan builds on progress made during the National Mission but recognises that we need sustained leadership to tackle ongoing and emerging harms from alcohol and drugs.
While a shared policy direction at a national level is important, ultimately it is the local delivery of support that will make a difference to people’s lives. These solutions will lie in our communities, shaped by people, and delivered through trusted local services.
At the launch of the strategy at a rehabilitation facility in Inverclyde, I met with people in recovery and who told me how important it is to have pathways of care that bridge different services, bringing together specialist care with appropriate housing and ongoing wellbeing support.
Councils are well placed provide wrap-around support for people affected by drugs and alcohol and their families which fosters sustained recovery. Housing, social work and social care and community justice support some of the most vulnerable in our communities. This holistic support, meeting the needs of the whole person, act as the foundations for more specialist care. Meanwhile, our partnership working third sector organisations enable greater reach into communities, including outreach with people who face additional barriers to accessing services.
If we are serious about reducing harm from alcohol and drugs, we need strong local knowledge to understand why communities in Scotland continue to be deeply affected by drugs and alcohol. The stark reality is that the harms are not evenly distributed; rather, they are closely aligned to the prevalence of deprivation. Experiences of poverty and trauma can act as an underlying driver of harms, while drug and alcohol issues can perpetuate deprivation.
COSLA has long championed this preventative approach which tackles these root causes because our councillors witness firsthand how interconnected these inequalities are with wider outcomes. As much as 80% of what determines our mental and physical health comes from outside of health and care services. Our health and wellbeing starts long before a person speaks to their GP. It starts with a warm, safe home, with whole-family support in the critical early years and access to opportunities through high-quality education and secure local jobs.
As set out in the Population Health Framework, these are the wider determinants of health, the underlying social, economic and environmental factors that have a greater impact on our health outcomes that access to health and social care services. The preventative and universal services that councils deliver every day are the embodiment of these determinants: our schools, transport networks, leisure and culture facilities.
Indeed, no other part of the public sector has such depth or breadth in people’s daily lives. Our joint approach to reducing harms from alcohol and drugs rightly places prevention at its heart, maximising these local opportunities to shape healthy, resilient communities.
As the form of government which is closest to people, councils have the local knowledge to understand where services are working well, where gaps exist and how to make the best use of a community’s strengths. Differing demography and geography mean that our communities can vary. Post-industrial communities in the central belt have different challenges and opportunities to remote, rural and island communities. Flexibility in the delivery of services is vital to meet the needs in a range of local contexts.
Key to developing place-based solutions are the insights from people with lived and living experience of drug and alcohol issues, so services are developed with people, not for them. Last year, COSLA Leaders endorsed the Charter of Rights for People Affected by Substance Use which empowers people to know the human rights that belong to them.
Since publication, a range of emerging local practice has focused on meaningful engagement and participation, promoting more inclusive and accessible services, and enabling people to shape services through what matters most to them.
As we move forwards with this preventative, rights-based approach, I recognise the significant pressures that the system is under. Alcohol and Drug Partnerships, which coordinate a range of services to meet local need are often led by very small teams of committed individuals working to tight budgets. The wider workforce is delivering preventative, wrap-around and specialist support in challenging circumstances due to high and complex levels of need in communities.
Many of us continue to feel the effects of drugs and alcohol issues in our communities – in the unacceptably high numbers of lives lost and the families affected, and through the wider impacts of organised crime, including trafficking. New substances, increased toxicity and changing patterns of drug use add further challenges which require expertise and bespoke solutions.
Strong leadership in all parts of the system is essential to recognise the role that we all have to play to promote good health wellbeing and reduce harms. This will involve culture change, tackling stigma and promoting human rights in everything we do. We have already clarified the governance arrangement for Alcohol and Drug Partnerships through the Partnership Delivery Framework. This affirms the importance of a range of statutory services, not just local authorities, but also health boards, police and the prison service. Further work is required to ensure all partners understand their roles and responsibilities.
At a national level, our joint approach with Scottish Government will enable local and national leaders to work together to prioritise action that will make the greatest impact and hold each other to account.
Working with the Minister for Public Health, Mental Wellbeing, Sport, Alcohol and Drugs, I look forward to inviting a diverse range of individuals and organisations, including third sector colleagues, clinicians and people with lived and living experience, to provide advice, insight and challenge to support the delivery of the Strategic Plan.
By combining a shared national ambition with strong local leadership, we can consider drugs and alcohol not in a siloed fashion but across the broad range of services that councils and their partners provide.
We can deepen partnership working, build a culture of learning, listening to those most affected. Through a collective commitment to prevention and wrap-around support, to reducing inequalities and to improving outcomes, we can create resilient communities and support people to live longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives.
COSLA Community Wellbeing Spokesperson, Cllr Maureen Chalmers, responded to the Scottish Government’s Homelessness Figures. She said:“Today’s published homelessness figures are disappointing and underline the scale of the housing challenges facing local communities across the country.
“While there are some slight improvements in some measures, too many individuals and families continue to experience homelessness.
“Councils are working tirelessly to prevent homelessness and support those in need, but housing demand continues to outstrip supply in many areas.
“Tackling this challenge requires sustained investment in affordable housing, a strong focus on prevention, and close partnership working across national and local government.
“Everyone deserves access to a safe, secure and affordable home, and councils remains committed to working with partners to make that ambition a reality.”
The number of children waking up without a home in Scotland has reached another record high and more than doubling in the last 10 years, new Scottish Government statistics show.
10,715 children are currently trapped in temporary accommodation, compared to 5,223 in 2015. People are waiting in temporary accommodation for years for a home and more people are sleeping rough. Instances of local authority homelessness services unlawfully breaching people’s housing rights have also significantly increased, up 32% to 21,800 since last year.
The figures show the sheer scale of Scotland’s broken housing system – the result of decades of underinvestment and the failure to build enough social homes, says Shelter Scotland.
The leading housing and homelessness charity says that the situation can be turned around, but only if building more social homes becomes a national mission supported by an exceptional level of funding. Areas that need it most like Glasgow must receive national investment from Scottish and UK Governments.
This new data comes after the First Minister promised to end the use of unsuitable temporary accommodation for children in the recent Programme for Government. The test now is whether real change will be felt by the thousands of families and children without a home.
Gordon Llewellyn-MacRae, Interim Director at Shelter Scotland said:“Scotland’s housing emergency has been decades in the making. Children are growing up in harmful conditions and families don’t know how long they will be stuck in limbo.
“Local authorities are under extreme pressure and are unlawfully turning people away who have a right to housing. That pressure is resulting in housing being weaponised with calls to roll back rights. It is utterly unacceptable.
“We know why it has happened- because we have failed to build enough social homes. The First Minister’s recent pledge to stop children being placed in harmful temporary accommodation is very welcome, showing he has listened to the demands of families. But we won’t celebrate just yet – promises mean nothing without action.
“The situation in Glasgow needs a national response. It needs investment from the Scottish and UK Governments until the asylum backlog declines and we must see the delivery of homes quicker to lift people – especially children – out of temporary accommodation.
“The good news is we know how to end the housing emergency and so do the Government. We need committed investment to deliver the social homes desperately and urgently needed. If the Government focuses More Homes Scotland on social housing, there’s a massive opportunity to change the trajectory.
“Families can’t wait any longer. It’s time to turn the tide and follow through with action, so we don’t allow more children to face the same fate for the next decade.”
Janet Haugh, CEO of Right There, said: “These figures should shock us all. More than 10,700 children are now growing up in temporary accommodation across Scotland, while rough sleeping continues to rise.
“Scotland cannot keep describing this as a housing emergency without responding like it is one.
“We need action, not platitudes. Prevention, affordable housing and early support must move from ambition to action.”
The latest Debate Not Hate survey, undertaken by the Local Government Association (LGA) since 2022, has this year been extended to councillors in Scotland and Northern Ireland, reflecting the four UK nations joint commitment to promoting and defencing civility in public life as expressed in the joint statement of October 2025.
A total of 1503 councillors across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland responded to the survey, which found that:
78 per cent of councillors reported feeling some level of personal risk while fulfilling their role as a councillor, with over 85 percent of female, ethnic minority, LGBT+ or disabled councillors reporting feeling at risk. In Scotland, the overall figure was 81%.
52 percent of councillors reported that abuse and intimidation had increased sharply or slightly over the past 12 months, with 25 percent reporting it had increased sharply.
74 percent of councillors in England reported experiencing some level of abuse or intimidation during the 2026 local election campaign, with over two-thirds of Welsh and Scottish councillors doing so during the Senedd and Scottish Parliament campaigns.
Over a quarter of councillors (26 percent) reported having received threats of violence and 7 per cent a threat of death. In Scotland, 13% of councillors reported receiving a threat of damage to property, and 2% experiences actual violence.
Among councillors who have decided not to re-stand at the next elections or are undecided on whether or not to do so, 30 percent said their decision was influenced by abuse or intimidation (40% in Scotland); over one in three (35 percent) said they had made security modifications to their home due to safety concerns.
There have been important steps forward in improving councillor safety in recent years, including the introduction of Force Elected Official Advisers (FEOA).
There is growing awareness of the FOEA (or equivalents) that now exist in each police force to oversee elected member safety. 56 percent of councillors in England and Wales are aware of the FEOAs, increasing from 40 percent in the previous year, with even higher awareness in Scotland (76 percent). Nearly three quarters (74 percent) of councillors who had engaged with Force Elected Official Advisers or Operation Ford had found it very or fairly useful.
However, the Debate Not Hate Survey results suggest much more needs to be done by government, police forces, social media platforms and others to tackle the high and growing levels of abuse and intimidation. It is clear from the survey that many people are being put off standing or running again for local elected office due to an environment in which abuse and threats are increasingly common.
While a quarter of councillors had reported an incident of abuse or intimidation to the police, they were evenly divided as to whether they felt the issue had been addressed to some extent (34 percent) or hadn’t been addressed at all (33 percent).
While legitimate scrutiny and robust debate are essential in a healthy democracy, abuse, intimidation, threats and harassment have no place in public life.
The LGA, COSLA, NILGA and WLGA are therefore calling on the UK Government to work with devolved and local governments, local government associations and policing partners to establish formal arrangements to tackle these behaviours.
Any new arrangements should aim to bring together and coordinate existing initiatives, facilitate information sharing between agencies and invest in new solutions and security measures to better safeguard democratic participation at every level.
Cllr Shona Morrison, President of COSLA, said:“The results of the survey evidence what many elected members know to be true – that abuse and harassment is far too common an experience for councillors.
“Councillors and Councils are a vital part of democracy, and it is unacceptable that 81 percent of Scottish councillors have felt some level of risk whilst carrying out their role. With local government elections taking place next year, there is a real concern that we will lose talented, experienced and committed councillors due to this environment.
“COSLA is grateful to the councillors in Scotland who took part in the survey for the first time that have helped to draw attention to this important issue.
“We are committed to working with the Scottish and UK Governments, Police and partners to tackle the systemic challenges that have contributed to this culture of abuse and harassment.
“Protecting elected members is essential to protecting local democracy, and urgent action is needed to ensure councillors can represent their communities safely, confidently and effectively.”
Cllr Hannah Dalton, LGA Civility in Public Life Ambassador, said:“The findings of the 2026 Debate Not Hate survey are a stark reminder that abuse, threats and intimidation have become an all too common reality for those who step forward to serve their communities.
“We must never accept a situation where harassment and personal attacks are simply regarded as part of public service.
“It is deeply alarming that most councillors believe the problem is getting worse, with more than three-quarters having experienced abuse during the May 2026 local elections. This toxic culture is not only affecting those currently in office, it is deterring talented and committed people from standing for election in the first place. That is a direct threat to the strength, diversity and health of our democracy.
“We urgently call on the Government, police forces and social media companies to work with us to tackle this crisis head on. Concerted action is needed now to confront the growing hostility councillors face and ensure that those who represent their residents can do so without fear of abuse, intimidation or harassment.”
Alderman Hazel Legge, President of the NILGA, said:“The findings are concerning and highlight the very real challenges many councillors face.
“As Northern Ireland looks ahead to the next local government elections, we must ensure that no one is discouraged from standing for office because of abuse or intimidation.
“NILGA has been working closely with the PSNI to improve awareness and support for elected representatives, but there is more to do.
“Everyone should be able to serve their community without fear, and respectful debate must remain at the heart of our democracy.”
Cllr Mary Ann Brocklesby, WLGA Llywydd, and Cllr Jason McLellan, WLGA Social Justice and Equality Spokesperson, said:“The first-ever four nations Debate Not Hate survey marks an important milestone in our shared efforts to understand and tackle abuse and intimidation in public life.
“While the findings demonstrate that too many councillors continue to face unacceptable levels of abuse, they also provide a strong evidence base for collective action across the UK.
“We are committed to working together to support councillors, promote respectful democratic engagement and ensure local democracy remains open, representative and resilient.”
