An invitation from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to take part in a consultation on MPs’ pay:
Today IPSA is publishing a consultation on how MPs’ pay should be updated.
IPSA have a statutory duty under the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 to review MPs’ pay in the first year of each parliament. We decided after consulting in 2012, 2013 and 2015 that the best way to update MPs’ pay periodically was to link it to a transparent, external benchmark, and that the most appropriate benchmark was a measure of earnings.
This consultation proposes to retain that approach, using the Office of National Statistics (ONS) Average Weekly Earnings figure reflecting changes in public sector earnings for the period ahead.
Richard Lloyd, IPSA’s Interim Chair, said: “IPSA is responsible for setting MP’s pay and pensions. We act independently of parliament and have a statutory duty to review MPs’ pay in the first year of each parliament.
“We carried out a major review of MPs’ pay with consultations in 2012, 2013 and 2015, and technical adjustments in 2018. Given the huge economic uncertainties arising from the coronavirus pandemic, we do not think it is right to depart from this approach now.”
The consultation will close on 6 November 2020 and we expect to make a decision in December 2020.
To take part in the consultation please click the links below.
A package of financial flexibilities and extra funding for councils which could be worth up to £750 million has been agreed by the Scottish Government in partnership with COSLA.
To address the financial pressures caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic over the next two years, councils will be granted additional spending powers which could be worth around £600 million.
In addition to this, a Lost Income Scheme will be established to help compensate councils and council trusts for lost sales, fees and charges from services such as sports centres and parking charges.
Councils and their trusts will have access to an estimated £90 million of funding with council trusts delivering services on behalf of councils able to receive a share of a further £49 million of support through the scheme.
Added to additional funding already committed, this brings the value of the overall COVID-19 support package for councils to more than £1 billion.
Finance Secretary Kate Forbes said: “I have been clear that the Scottish Government needs appropriate fiscal levers in order to respond effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic. That is equally true for local government, which is why I am very pleased that we have been able to deliver a package of support for local services worth up to £750 million.
“Working in partnership with COSLA, the Scottish Government has delivered on our commitment to support councils across Scotland with a game changing package of financial flexibilities, giving them the powers they need to make informed decisions about spending at a local level.
“In addition, we are close to finalising the details of additional financial support through a Lost Income Scheme, worth an estimated £90 million subject to confirmation of the funding from the UK Government. For trusts delivering services on behalf of councils this can also be topped up with £49 million of additional funding already confirmed.
“This support will help councils and their trusts manage the loss of income they are facing from local services due to COVID-19.
“These measures are excellent examples of how the Scottish Government is working together with COSLA and local authorities to ensure that we are doing everything within our power to save jobs, protect our public services and reboot our economy.”
COSLA’s Resources Spokesperson Cllr Gail Macgregor said: “We welcome this substantial package of measures from which councils can choose, depending on local circumstance.
“Responding to COVID-19 whilst continuing to deliver essential, everyday services has put extreme pressure on Local Government finances this year. The pandemic has also meant substantial losses of income across a range of council services including leisure, sport, culture, and planning.
“Balancing budgets will be a real challenge and this has been fully recognised by Scottish Government who we have worked with constructively and positively.”
Openness and transparency are the key foundations of any democracy. But today we find too much of our politics is shrouded in secrecy. Too often voters remain unsure about who is behind the messages they read, who is behind the information that shapes their political views, and ultimately their votes. In no area is this truer than online campaigning (writes JESSICA BLAIR).
Nine months on from the general election, we still have little idea how much money was spent in the campaign. But even when the data is published by the Electoral Commission, huge gaps will remain in our understanding of how voters were targeted – and by whom.
Democracy is about empowering citizens so that they can actively take part in our political processes and make an informed decision at the ballot box. Transparency, fairness and accountability in political campaigning are key to ensuring this is possible. But while technology offers huge opportunities for political engagement, the current system – if it can be called that – is an unregulated Wild West.
Indeed, the Electoral Commission’s own post-election research found that ‘[m]isleading content and presentation techniques are undermining voters’ trust in election campaigns’ and that the ‘significant public concerns about the transparency of digital election campaigns risk overshadowing their benefits’.
Democracy in the Dark, a new report commissioned by the Electoral Reform Society and written by Dr Katharine Dommett and Dr Sam Power, sheds light on campaigning in the 2019 general election.
For the first time, the authors reveal how much was spent on social media platforms by campaigners and parties during the election, and track the rise of non-party ‘outriders’, with all the associated secrecy.
However, it’s not enough to just point out the risks. Dommett and Power also summarise the many sensible, proportionate and easily implementable recommendations, around which there is broad and cross-party consensus, as to how we can restore trust in our democratic processes.
These reforms would shine a light on the murky world of unregulated online campaigning, focusing on five key areas: 1. Money; 2. Non-party campaigns; 3. Targeting; 4. Data; 5. Misinformation.
Many of the recommendations in this report echo existing calls to modernise electoral law to help rebuild trust in our democratic system. Recommendations include closing funding loopholes, creating national standards for social media ad transparency and ensuring voters can easily see who is targeting them and why.
Since we published our report Reining in the Political Wild West in 2019, countless calls have been made across the political spectrum in support of reform and there continues to be strong and long-standing cross-party support to tame the unregulated Wild West of online political campaigning.
Yet despite repeated calls for reform, little action has been taken. Strikingly, far from becoming more transparent, the authors find that in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, parties and campaigners have become even more cautious about disclosing information about their campaign activities online.
In terms of progress, the most significant step has been the launch of a consultation on extending the use of imprints to include online election material – a necessary step, but which on its own is woefully insufficient.
Such limited efforts have further been undermined by alleged threats to abolish the Electoral Commission if it cannot be ‘radically overhauled’. Rather than enhancing the Commission’s powers and resources so that it can tackle the challenges of the modern age, the body tasked with protecting our democracy is under unprecedented attack.
With elections due to take place across the UK in May 2021, we cannot let the urgent task of ensuring our electoral integrity be kicked into the long grass once more.
Edinburgh Association of Community Councils will now meet in October
We are sorry to notify CC members that we have decided to cancel the next meeting due to be held on Thursday 24th September 2020.
Unfortunately, due to holidays and other issues, we have not been able to tie up with speakers nor obtain sufficient information on current issues to make a meeting worthwhile for those representatives who normally attend.
We are planning to hold a virtual meeting on Thursday 22nd October 2020 with a full agenda of items raised by representatives. It would still be helpful if issues of concern raised at CC meetings were notified to the Secretary in order that we can circulate relevant information to attendees.
We still proposed to hold an AGM on Thursday 19th November 2020.
We apologise for the late cancellation of next Thursday’s meeting.
Kind regards
John Tibbitt
Chair, Edinburgh Association of Community Councils
The report from Weekend 5 of the Assembly has now been published, and you can see all the outputs including the livestream recordings on our Weekend 5 page.
Convener Kate Wimpress has also published a blog where she reflects on the last weekend.
We look forward to meeting again online on 3 and 4 October, and hope you can join us by watching the livestream on our homepage.
The UK Government is investing £7.2 million in twenty research projects across the UK, including the universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde, to help provide developing countries with sustainable solutions to respond to Covid-19 and future pandemics.
One of these projects, led by the University of Edinburgh’s Dr Thomas Molony, will receive £367,000 to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on elections in Africa.
Working in partnership with colleagues in the Central African Republic, Ghana and Tanzania, the study will find ways to protect the electorate from Covid-19 transmission.
The project team – comprising of country specialists, leading public health researchers, and election experts – plan to investigate multiple stages of each election, tracking patterns of turnout and using surveys (with gender-balanced samples) to investigate attitudes towards voting so that any emergent gender inequality is highlighted.
The University of Strathclyde project, led by Dr Pratima Sambajee, will receive £199,579 in funding to look at how Covid-19 has impacted workers’ rights in Mauritius and how improvements can be made.
The hardest hit are workers in tourism and hospitality, textile factories and the informal economy. Examples include reduced compensation, withholding of workers’ annual leave and exemption from negotiations with workers’ organisations (unions) by employers prior to reduction of the workforce.
UK Government Minster for Scotland, Iain Stewart said: “These remarkable projects will play a critical role in helping to address the issue of Covid-19 transmission at elections in the developing world and help ensure workers’ rights are protected.
“Adapting to the risks of Covid-19 has been especially hard for the world’s most vulnerable communities.
“It’s great news that Scottish researchers are helping the international community respond to the pandemic and making an impact tackling Covid-19 globally.”
UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: “Defeating coronavirus is a truly global endeavour, which is why we’re backing Britain’s scientists and researchers to work with their international counterparts to find tech solutions to treat and combat this virus around the world.
“By backing these pioneering research projects in Scotland, we are equipping some of the most vulnerable communities with the resources they need to tackle pandemics now and in the future.”
Dr Thomas Molony, Director, Centre of African Studies at Edinburgh University said: Elections give people the opportunity to shape the future of their societies. Such decisions are crucial in the context of Covid-19, which has drastically affected lives around the globe.
“A number of elections are still due to take place this year in Africa, and there are a further 18 elections are scheduled for 2021.
“By working to reduce the risks of Covid-19 transmission during elections, we’re contributing towards one of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): to ensure healthy lives and promote the wellbeing for all at all ages.
“We are also interested in democracy. The Covid-19 pandemic has the potential for democratic back-sliding, where the quality and legitimacy of elections are undermined – either unintentionally because of safety measures, or intentionally where incumbents seek to instrumentalise the virus through authoritarian measures designed to benefit themselves.”
Other projects receiving UK Government funding include delivering mass vaccination capacity in Bangladesh, protective equipment for refugees in Jordan and remote healthcare access for patients in Nigeria.
The £7.2 million UK government funding will be managed by UK aid programmes, the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and the Newton Fund.
The funding follows the launch of the government’s ambitious R&D Roadmap in July, which committed to boosting international collaboration in research and development and establishing global scientific partnerships that will create health, social and economic benefits across the world.
A Scottish Parliament Committee has launched an inquiry to find out how social security can help aid the social and economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Holyrood’s Social Security Committee is keen to find out how the economic downturn will impact people across Scotland and how social security in Scotland should be utilised to support people through it.
The inquiry is particularly focused upon how best the Scottish social security system can support those both in or out of employment, and those seeking to find work in what is likely to be a challenging labour market.
The committee will also examine the constraints the Scottish social security system is under within the wider UK context.
The Committee is seeking workable solutions to help outline a Scottish social security system for 2021 and beyond which can respond to the immense challenges created by this pandemic.
Bob Doris MSP, Convener of the Social Security Committee said: “There is no doubt these are unprecedented times which are likely to create an unprecedented demand for social security support.
“There has been much discussion on the introduction of a universal basic income but our Committee is keen to look beyond this at the other options available.
“We want to know how people feel Social Security Scotland should respond to meet the expected increase in demand and what other forms of support should be made available.
“This inquiry is determined to find out what, within the social security and borrowing powers available to Scottish Ministers, could be achieved and delivered, and to understand the constraints and barriers which would limit the ability of Ministers in Scotland to make the changes required.
“We are seeking views from those right across society to help propose innovative and workable solutions for social security in Scotland which can best combat the devastating impact of this pandemic and aid our recovery.”
To give your views go to the Citizen Space web page:
Paper proposes way forward to create stronger,self-sustaining communities
The Jimmy Reid Foundation has released a new report called ‘Building stronger communities’ (LINK FOR PAPER HERE) by Dave Watson.
Building upon his earlier papers for the Jimmy Reid Foundation, in this new paper he argues the pandemic has highlighted the importance of strong communities for supporting each other despite communities of place having been undermined by recent austerity.
The pandemic has also highlighted that political opportunities are opening up for society to be organised in new and quite different ways from before. In this context, he puts forward a set of proposals to create stronger, self-sustaining communities.
Summarising the paper:
Watson makes the case for a comprehensive programme to rebuild communities as the building block of a more equal, democratic, healthier and sustainable society. To do this, he deploys the concept of ‘social infrastructure’, namely, the physical conditions that determine whether personal relationships can flourish. When social infrastructure is robust, he argues, it fosters contact, mutual support, and collaboration among friends and neighbours. When degraded, it inhibits social activity, leaving families and individuals to fend for themselves. Watson looks at a wide range of initiatives that can strengthen social infrastructure including housing, libraries, leisure facilities, voluntary organisations, community ownership and the role of planning.
In this context, he argues that it has to be recognised that the governance of public services in Scotland is one of the most centralised in Europe. Consequently, he makes the case for national government to focus on setting frameworks, and leaving the delivery of services to local democratic control. And so, local integrated services should, he argues, be based around community hubs in recognisable communities of place. But this also includes, he suggests, repurposing our town centres in Scotland via community wealth building based on wellbeing and inclusion.
And, given the impact of austerity, Watson also recommends that stronger communities require fair funding for local services. Therefore, in addition to a fairer allocation of grant support, he argues the reform of both the council tax and business rates is long overdue and as are considering local levies for revitalised Common Good funds and the taxation of digital services. He adds that accompanying measures to decentralise powers at the local level are essential to democratise society and economy.
Commenting on his paper, Dave Watson said: ‘The paper argues that stronger communities will not happen by mere accident or as a result of more political rhetoric. Instead of a series of piecemeal initiatives, we need a comprehensive programme of action that covers all the factors that help build stronger communities.
By making communities the building block of our society, we can create a fairer Scotland where we care about each other, where people can pool their resources, demand accountability, build institutions and influence the decisions that affect them. This responds to evidence from polling that people want to be more engaged, but generally don’t feel part of the decision-making process.’
Dave Watson was head of policy and public affairs at UNISON Scotland until retiring in September 2018. He has been a government advisor on public service reform, health and energy policy.
He was an expert advisor to the Christie Commission that set the current framework for public service reform in Scotland. He now works on policy development, human resource and pension consultancy projects and is Secretary of the Socialist Health Association Scotland.
His previous papers for the Jimmy Reid Foundation papers are ‘Public Service Reform’ (2017) and ‘Municipal Socialism for Modern Scotland’ (2018).
The Citizens Assembly will resume online following a break due to COVID disruption. We will reconvene on 5 September and will report to the Scottish Government and Parliament by the end of the year.
The Assembly’s remit will be unchanged.
You may recall that before the pause, members had made substantial progress in developing a shared vision for the future of Scotland, and had considered key challenges to building a sustainable country.
Members also examined Scotland’s finances and taxation, and discussed how decisions are taken for and about Scotland.
The Assembly will now complete its work across these areas, while also considering the impact of COVID-19.
The interim report, The Journey So Far, was published yesterday alongside a comprehensive set of articles and videos summarising the work.
The Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) and CCLA has opened nominations for the 2020 Cllr Awards. The Cllr Awards are the only national awards ceremony to celebrate the achievements of individual councillors across Scotland.
Since 2018, LGIU Scotland and CCLA have been honouring the hard work of councillors that so often goes unrecognised. The Award categories celebrate the varied work of councillors. New categories for 2020 include Covid-19 Hero and Collaborative Working alongside the coveted Champion for Education, Leader of the Year and New Councillor of the Year awards.
Nominations are now officially open until 18 September with the shortlist due to be unveiled in the middle of October. Nominations can be made by anyone who would like to recognise a councillor doing outstanding work for their community.
“The winners will be decided by a panel of judges composed of senior councillors and officers as well as leading stakeholders from across the sector. This year’s ceremony will take place at the end of November. Due to the ongoing health crisis, it will be held virtually with winners announced on the night.
This year’s awards are made possible thanks to the generous support of founding partners CCLA.
Jonathan Carr-West, Chief Executive of LGIU Scotland, said: “Now, more than ever, we need to honour the unsung heroes of local government who are working tirelessly to keep the country afloat during the pandemic.
“This is why we are proud to once again open nominations for this year’s Cllr Awards. It has never been more important that we take the time to recognise the vital work of our councillors.
“We want to hear from as many members of the public, councillors and local leaders as possible about the individuals who are making a real difference in your communities.
“We are always overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of the nominations we receive each year. However, we know that this year’s Awards will shine a light on the highest calibre of nominations yet.”