Councils and Scottish Government ‘working hand-in-hand’
First Minister Humza Yousaf has reaffirmed the Scottish Government’s commitment to resetting the relationship with local authorities in a meeting with COSLA President Shona Morrison.
A New Deal for local government has been embodied in the appointment of a dedicated Minister for Local Government Empowerment and Planning, Joe FitzPatrick, who joined the meeting alongside Deputy First Minister Shona Robison.
The New Deal will be jointly agreed with COSLA and will provide greater flexibility over local funding and clear accountability for delivering shared priorities.
The First Minister said: “These early discussions in my first week as First Minister have been an important opportunity for me to reaffirm the Scottish Government’s commitment to working collaboratively with local government.
“Together, local and national governments work hand-in-hand to deliver on our shared priorities for the people of Scotland and the vital public services in our communities whilst recognising the considerable financial pressures across the public sector.
“Work is already underway on developing a New Deal for Local Government. We will work together, through regular and meaningful engagement, to progress this, explore a new fiscal framework for councils and reform our public services.”
COSLA President Shona Morrison said: “I was very pleased to get a meeting with the new First Minister in his first week in office. It was both a productive and positive meeting with a range of issues discussed.
“I certainly hope we can build a strong working relationship as we jointly go about delivering for the people of Scotland.”
The COSLA Excellence Awards are about recognising the great work, talent and innovation across our councils and the exceptional people who deliver for our communities every day of the year.
The COSLA Excellence Awards 2023 will take place on Thursday, 28 September 2023 in the Crieff Hydro Hotel as part of the COSLA Annual Conference.
A Timeline for the Awards process is attached
· Applications will open on Monday 3rd April 2023
· Application deadline for entries will be Wednesday 31st May 2023
Judging, led by a team from COSLA, SOLACE, The Improvement Service and Local Government Professional Associations,will take place over the summer, shortlisting to a final three in each category.
Finalists, will be invited to present to an adjudication panel at COSLA’s offices in Edinburgh on either Wednesday 23rd or Thursday 24th August
· All finalist teams will be invited to the awards ceremony on Thursday, 28 September 2023 at Crieff Hydro Hotel, Perthshire where the winners will be announced.
The categories for this year’s event are:
· Category 1: Service Innovation and Improvement
· Category 2: Achieving Better Outcomes for the Most Vulnerable in Partnership
· Category 3: Tackling Inequalities and Improving Health and Wellbeing
· Category 4: Strengthening Communities and Local Democracy
· Category 5: Just Transition to a Net Zero Economy
Submitting Your Application Form
The deadline for submission of entries will be by COSLA application form at 5.00pm on Wednesday 31st May 2023.
The EIS recently announced an escalation of its action to include targeted strike action in schools within the constituencies of the First Minister, Deputy First Minster, Cabinet Secretary for Education, and COSLA Resources Spokesperson, Councillor Katie Hagmann.
As the Scottish Green Party is a party of the Scottish Government, part of its Education Spokesperson’s (Ross Greer) regional constituency has also been targeted – the part of Clydebank and Milngavie constituency that lies within the East Dunbartonshire Council area.
There will be two days of national strike action for all members on Tuesday 28th February and Wednesday 1 March and a further 20 days of rolling strike action between 13 March and 21 April 2023.
National Strike Days
Date
Local Associations
Tuesday 28th February
All Local Associations
Wednesday 1st March
All Local Associations
Targeted Strikes
Date
Constituencies
7th – 9th March
Glasgow Southside, Dunfermline, Perthshire North, the part of Clydebank and Milngavie constituency that lies within the East Dunbartonshire Council area and Mid Galloway & Wigtown West
EDINBURGH councillors have passed a budget focused on ‘getting the basics right’ and making Edinburgh a ‘cleaner and greener city’. However that budget was not the one put forward by by the ruling Labour administration – council rejected that, and instead eventually backed a Liberal Democrat budget.
This means a Labour-led council will now be promoting and implementing a budget put forward by the Liberal Democrats, the council’s third biggest party.
Trade unions are concerned about elements within the budget passed by the council – particularly over compulsory redundancies and outsourcing- and some senior Labour figures believe Council Leader Cammy Day’s position is now untenable.
There are calls for him to resign: both from the SNP – the biggest group on the council – and, perhaps of more concern, from within the city’s own Labour group.
The humiliating budget defeat shows the fragility of Labour’s leadership position within the council.
With thirteen councillors Labour needs the support of other parties to run the city.
Labour chose to break their ‘Capital Coalition’ agreement with the SNP and instead joined forces with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats following last May’s local government elections, despite assurances from Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar that there would be ‘no deals’.
With 18 councilllors the SNP is the biggest group on the city council by some way. Labour (13) is second followed by the Lib Dems (12), Greens (10) and Tories (9).
Lib Dems, doubtless boosted by their Budget coup, are bullish about their chances of increasing their representation in the City Chambers following a by-election in Corstorphine/Murrayfield on 9 March.
SNP Group leader (and leader of the former ruling ‘Capital Coalition’) said: “What Labour actually voted for: -£600k saving by ending no compulsory redundancy policy NOW. -£500k saving THIS YEAR by privatising waste & cleansing services.
“You can’t trust a word from Labour on this.”
He also tweeted: “Labour “administration” budget defeated – Labour instead backed the LibDem budget in full. If my budget had been voted down as Council Leader I’d have had the integrity to resign.”
While rejecting a series of savings proposals in education and speech and language therapy, councillors agreed to allocate substantial additional money to improve roads, paths and pavements and carry out additional resurfacing works for the long term.
Additional funding will also be made available for the city’s parks and greenspaces, tackling fly tipping, graffiti removal and street sweeping, and additional resource for flood defences and gully cleaning in light of the increasing impacts of climate change.
The Climate and Sustainability Team will also be bolstered, enabling a greater focus on the city’s ambition of becoming net zero by 2030 and the King’s Theatre will also benefit from funding to secure its future, with £3m set aside – a move supported across the council.
Liberal Democrat Group Leader Cllr Kevin Lang said: “I’m delighted that our budget got support from councillors – and that, in the midst of the cost of living crisis, we’ve been able to limit the rise in council tax to 5% for Edinburgh’s residents.
“This is a Council budget that delivers. A budget that stops £5 million of education cuts, injects £11 million extra to tackle our broken roads and pavements, more investment for parks and new money for climate change action.
“Despite continued funding cuts from the Scottish Government, residents still rightly expect high quality local services in return for the increasing amounts of council tax they pay each year, which requires a budget which focuses on essential core services, delivered well.”
Council Leader Cammy Day said: “Despite the unique demands of a Capital city, Edinburgh continues to receive the worst grant funding of any local authority in Scotland. Years of local government cuts have now come to a head, forcing us to find close to £80m of savings this year – on top of the hundreds of millions we’ve made already.
“It’s a position none of us wanted to be in and our residents deserve better. Despite this, we presented a positive, fair and responsible set of proposals, aimed at protecting vital frontline services on which our communities and residents rightly depend.
“So, I was deeply disappointed we didn’t secure the backing from other groups, particularly in the manner in which it came about. But, for all that, I remain absolutely committed to leading this council and to working with all other groups to deliver the best for the people of Edinburgh.”
Many people are waiting longer for housing benefit claims to be processed as services across Scotland’s councils face rising workloads, fewer staff and high sickness absence levels.
The Accounts Commission, the independent body that holds councils to account, says councils need to better manage staffing levels and workloads, and put in place contingency arrangements.
Council benefit teams are operating with greatly reduced staffing levels, often with a deficit of ten per cent or more, and sickness absences are persistently higher than the national average. Flexible location working arrangements are now prevalent in council benefit services.
Whilst there has been a drop in the amount of short-term sick leave, it is also taking longer to process benefit claims. As people claiming housing benefit are often in urgent need of financial support, councils must better understand the impact of flexible location working arrangements on the delivery of the service.
Councils are implementing some improvements to service delivery and people’s experience, through new technologies such as robotics and automation. This will help improve access to benefit services, increase response times and reduce the number of days taken to process claims.
William Moyes, Chair of the Accounts Commission, said: “Clients needing housing benefit are often in urgent need. It is vital that councils have sufficient resources, alongside experienced staff, to manage increased workloads and staff absences. This will help ensure services are delivered more efficiently and effectively.
“It is positive that councils have continued to invest in different technologies, helping achieve some improvements. But the level of staff absence is a significant concern, and it is vital that councils understand the potential impacts of flexible location working arrangements on the performance of the service they provide.”
A COSLA Spokesperson said: “Following an emergency meeting of Leaders today (Friday) Council Leaders have agreed that COSLA approach the Scottish Government seeking urgent further discussions around their expectations for education. There was agreement that Scottish Government expectations cannot be met unless additional necessary resources are provided.
“Council Leaders re-emphasised their great disappointment with the approach taken by Scottish Government on this matter which is neither in the spirit of partnership working nor recognises councils’ legitimate authority to make decisions on the services they deliver on behalf of their local communities.”
“A mandate has been provided to open discussions to consider how the government’s priorities might be delivered, including considerations on the flexibilities and the overall quantum of funding in the Local Government settlement and establish a shared understanding of the best path forward, to achieve our shared objective of closing the attainment gap and maintaining other vital local services.”
“Leaders remain committed to improving attainment and closing the poverty related attainment gap and achieving the best outcomes possible for all young people. Local Government has made good progress in the last few years and have seen the biggest ever decrease in the gap.
Leaders acknowledge this is down to the partnership working between local and central government pulling together for a shared outcome, which always provides the best opportunity to achieve our ambitions in difficult circumstances.”
The Salaries Committee of the EIS has highlighted that the First Minister has it within her power to bring an end to the current dispute over teacher pay.
This follows a question at First Minister’s Questions in Parliament, where the First Minister said that she “very much hoped” that a resolution to the pay dispute could be reached “soon”.
Commenting following a meeting of the EIS Salaries Committee on Thursday afternoon, where the ongoing dispute over pay dominated the agenda, EIS Salaries Convener Des Morris said, “While the EIS Salaries Committee very much shares the First Minister’s ‘hope’ that a resolution to the pay dispute can be reached ‘soon’, we would also point out that the ability to settle the dispute is very much within the First Minister’s power.
“The only thing that will settle this dispute is an improved offer to Scotland’s teachers, one that is both fair and affordable to them, which will involve additional new money from the Scottish Government.
“This is what was done to settle disputes with other local government workers. It is the First Minister who has ultimate control over the purse strings so, if she wishes this dispute to be settled soon, the First Minister should authorise the Cabinet Secretary and her officials to release the comparatively modest additional funding needed to end this dispute.”
Mr Morris continued, “The truth is, that little or no progress has been made towards an agreement for several months. There are currently no further pay negotiations scheduled within the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT).
“Negotiating meetings through the SNCT have become profoundly frustrating affairs, as Scottish Government negotiators are coming into talks with their hands effectively tied and with no additional money to offer. We have been extremely clear that the current 5% offer on the table – which was itself simply a repackaging of a previously rejected 5% offer – will not be accepted by Scotland’s teachers.
“We have now rejected sub-inflationary 5% offers twice, and underlined this rejection through three days of strike action by most EIS members, so only a fresh offer which is good enough to put to our members for consideration can hope to halt strike action in our schools.”
Mr Morris added, “As ever, the EIS remains ready and willing to re-enter discussions with the Scottish Government and Scottish local authorities to discuss a new pay offer for teachers.
“We are not, however, willing to continue discussing the same offer that has now been rejected by teachers twice. The Scottish Government and COSLA must come up with an improved offer to allow pay discussions to progress towards an agreement that genuinely reflects both the soaring cost of living and the value of Scotland’s teachers.”
Councillor Paul Kelly, COSLA Health and Social Care spokesperson, said: “COSLA Leaders are clear that addressing the pressures in our health and social care system needs a whole system approach which is not just about delayed discharge.
“All partners need to acknowledge that longstanding recruitment and retention issues place significant constraints on Health and Social Care Partnerships ability to deal with challenges and we must urgently invest in fair work to ensure that progress can be made in building and developing the social care workforce.”
At a meeting in Edinburgh yesterday (Friday 27th January) Scotland’s Council Leaders expressed their extreme disappointment that the Cabinet had decided to make interventions in relation to minimum learning hours and pupil teacher ratio.
Council Leaders were clear that given the Scottish Budget for next year, there is a crisis in Local Government funding like never before and the reaction from Scottish Government so far does not reflect the crisis councils, and our communities are facing.
Council Leaders reiterated the limited options facing Local Government as a result of the Budget, now made worse by Scottish Government’s intentions around teacher numbers and the hours children spend in school.
Commenting in a joint statement COSLA Spokespeople Katie Hagmann (Resources) and Tony Buchanan (Children and Young People) said: “This is an unnecessary and unwanted attack and intervention on our democratic mandate as elected politicians in our own right. We are seeing potentially unworkable proposals foisted on us without any prior discussion or consultation with Local Government – proposals we will be seeking legal advice on.
“We believe the teacher census information, which can only ever be a single snapshot in time, does not present the whole picture. It does not reflect that the attainment gap is moving in a positive direction or that we have recruited between August- December 620 teachers permanently and a further 400+ on either a temporary or fixed term basis.
“We have already written to Scottish Government with robust evidence of the investment that councils have been making in teaching and pupil support staff. We’ve also highlighted the impact that the proposals will have across other council services, with cuts and job losses having to once again be taken from already hard pressed everyday essential service like roads, libraries, and waste.
“It is very disappointing that it has come to this, but we have been honest and upfront with Scottish Government throughout the Budget process. Our budget lobbying and in particular ‘Education SOS’ (attached) made clear the potential impacts on education services prior to the budget announcement, given the pressure of £1bn that exists for Local Government.
“This move will not stop councils from being forced to make reductions in the support we provide to children and young people. Local authorities will have to consider cutting pupil support staff, libraries, youth work and other vital services that support the attainment, health and wellbeing of children and young people.”
