With the elections for Scotland’s local authorities happening on May 5th, it is important to emphasise the vital role councils play in helping blind and partally sighted people to live as independently and inclusively as possible.
People with a visual impairment are more likely to depend on services from their local council, for information that’s readily available in alternative formats, public transport that’s accessible, streets and thoroughfares that allow people to walk safely and without obstacles, education that allows every child to reach their full potential, and employment that’s informed by a better understanding of what those with sight loss can do.
Around 178,000 people are currently living with a significant degree of sight loss in Scotland, of whom over 4,000 are children and young people. Our ageing population and the increase in sight-theatening conditions such as diabetes means this number will, inevitably, grow.
Let’s make one positive legacy of the upheaval we’ve all been through a resolve to make sure we re-emerge as a society in which no one is left at the margins.
Our local authorities are absolutely key to this.
James Adams
Director, Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) Scotland
Environmental campaigners say the upcoming council elections are going to be significant in tackling the climate crisis, and are calling on all parties to make policies on transport and waste management a priority.
The councillors elected across Scotland in May will be in their position for five years in what is a vital decade for action to avert climate breakdown.
The UN climate conference in Glasgow was a key moment for international action, but the powers held by Councils makes them pivotal when it comes to tackling Scotland’s emissions and building on the legacy of COP26.
Transport is the primary source of carbon emissions in Scotland, making up around a third of the total. While progress has been made in other areas, this has barely changed in the last three decades.
Councils have the power to set up publicly-owned bus companies which could make a significant difference here. They also receive funding, which will be increasing in the coming years as part of the SNP and Greens agreement, for cycling and walking, which some councils currently make use of more than others.
Scotland is now burning almost as much of its household waste as it is sending to landfill, while household recycling rates have fallen by 2.9% to 42.0% between 2019 and 2020. This means Scotland now has the poorest recycling rates in the UK. Councils are in charge of designing and providing waste collection systems for households and therefore have a key role to play in reducing the carbon impact of household waste.
Mary Church, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “These elections are being contested against the backdrop of a climate and nature emergency. Many of the powers to drive action on the climate crisis sit with local councils, which is why this vote matters so much.
“Councillors must put people and the planet at the heart of all of the decisions they make. This means making it easier and more affordable to take public transport by running services in the interests of passengers rather than shareholders, helping people to reduce and recycle their waste, and planning for the vital phase out of incineration.
“Over the coming weeks, people can get in touch with candidates to hear what they have to say on these climate-critical issues and build pressure for ambition and urgency at the local level during the next five years.”
Friends of the Earth Scotland has set out a programme of priorities for climate action they want parties to champion, which can be downloaded below:
Official figures reveal that council taxpayers in Edinburgh pay on average £587 a year less than they would in Tory-run England and £398 less than in Labour-run Wales.
Across Scotland, council tax payers get the best deal in Britain. The figures also demonstrate that the savings for Scottish council tax payers in comparison to what those in England and Wales will pay is going to be even greater next year.
The research shows that Band D council tax payers in Edinburgh pay £1,379 which is £587 less than the equivalent in England and £398 less than in Wales.
Council tax across Scotland is lower than in England – for 2022/23, the average Band D Council Tax bill in Scotland is £1347 compared to £1966 in England and £1777 in Wales.
For 2022/23, the average charge for all property bands, including E, F, G and H, is between £413 and £651 lower in Scotland than England.
The average council tax increase in Scotland for 2022/23 was 3.0%, compared with 3.5% in England and 2.7% in Wales.
Commenting, SNP MSP Gordon MacDonald said: “Council taxpayers in Edinburgh are paying £587 less than they would in England. In fact, council taxpayers across Scotland get the best deal in Britain.
“On top of the £150 council tax rebate announced last month by Finance Secretary Kate Forbes, this demonstrates that the Scottish Government is doing all it can within its restricted powers and resources to keep as much money as possible in the pockets of Scottish families.
“Council tax bills in Edinburgh are so substantially lower because the SNP has such a strong record of delivering the best value. For an entire decade the SNP Scottish Government froze the cost of council tax – despite Westminster continuing to slash the Scottish budget.
“The SNP Scottish Government is also rolling out a social security system based on fairness and respect. It has introduced the ‘game-changing’ Scottish Child Payment – which will deliver £25 per week per child for the lowest income families in Edinburgh – and we are increasing a range of Scottish social security benefits by six per cent.
“It is a glaring contrast with the Westminster Tory Government which, far from protecting hard-pressed families from the spiralling Tory cost of living crisis, it callously cut vital Universal Credit support by £20 a week for the poorest families.
“This is a real tale of two Governments and the people of Scotland will have the opportunity to send a message to Boris Johnson by rejecting the Tories in the local elections on May 5.”
‘A tale of two governments’?It’s worth pointing out that neither Boris Johnson nor Nicola Sturgeon will be standing in May’s LOCAL government elections. These elections are supposed to be about who runs our council services!
Edinburgh is currently under the control of an SNP – Labour ‘Capital Coalition’ partnership. Do you think Edinburgh taxpayers are really getting a ‘good deal’? – Ed. …
Local elections will be held across all 32 Scottish local authorities on 5th May. Just over 1,200 council seats will be determined.
Local government is a hugely significant part of the public service landscape in Scotland. Local government’s revenue settlement from the Scottish government in 2022/23 is almost £12bn, accounting for just shy of one third of the Scottish government’s total revenue spending.
Drawing on this settlement – plus resources from council tax, fees and charges – local authorities will manage and deliver social care services, pre-school and school education, and a raft of environmental, planning and cultural services.
In this context, it is perhaps surprising that turnout at local government elections is typically less than 50% (turnout in 2017 was 47%). Low turnout partly reflects a sense among the electorate that their vote makes relatively little difference to the delivery of public services, for two reasons.
First is a pervasive view that local authorities have relatively little power to influence service delivery in meaningful ways, regardless of the political control of the council, as local authorities are often perceived largely as delivery agents of the Scottish government.
Second is a set of issues around political accountability. The results of local government elections are often ambiguous – after the 2017 elections, no mainland council authority was controlled by a single party (moreover, it is not always the case that the largest party forms part of the governing coalition). On top of this, the profile of local politicians is often low. Recent research indicates that three quarters of people are not confident that they could name the leader of their council.
Data from the Scottish Household Survey – an annual survey of around 10,000 households – indicates that in 2019, fewer than a fifth of adults thought they could influence decisions affecting their local area.
At the same time, only just over one quarter actually wanted to be more involved in the decisions of their local council (Chart 1). The last decade has seen a persistent decline in the proportion of adults who want to be more involved in local democracy.
Chart 1:Percentage of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing with various statements about local services.
Source: FAI analysis of Scottish Household Survey
The Covid pandemic may have raised the public’s awareness of local government and the breadth of activities it is responsible for. Local authorities were instrumental in delivering financial and other support during the pandemic – both to households and to businesses – supporting testing and tracing infrastructure, and ensuring the safe reopening of schools. It will be interesting to see whether this manifests in any increase in turnout in this year’s elections.
People have different views about how much we should care about the public’s relatively low interest in local government, and what we should do about it. For some, the answer is greater policy autonomy, both in general terms and in relation to local taxation in particular. For others, elected mayors (or provosts) would raise profile and accountability.
On the first of these issues, policy autonomy, there has been little progress during the past five years. In fact if anything, things are moving towards less not more local autonomy. Throughout the past five years the Scottish government has made increasing use of specific (ring-fenced grants). Meanwhile, the government’s plans to establish a new national social care agency – which have a number of well meaning justifications – have been referred to by Cosla as ‘a direct attack on localism and on the rights of people to make, and benefit from, decisions taken locally.
Local government funding, 2017/18 – 2022-23
One of the dominant issues going into the 2017 local government elections was the very constrained nature of the local government financial settlement over the past five years. Between 2013/14 and 2017/18, the core local government revenue settlement declined by £750 million in real terms according to SPICe which is equivalent to a 7% real terms reduction in its budget.
What’s happened to local government budgets during the past five years?
Unsurprisingly, local government budgets increased substantially during the pandemic. Local government General Revenue Grant increased by £2.4bn in 2020/21 to reach £9.3bn. The increase offsets the loss of around £1bn of non-domestic rates revenue as a result of pandemic-related tax reliefs, and also reflects increased grant to enable local authorities to play a critical role in delivering pandemic-related support to households, businesses, and the wider pandemic infrastructure (e.g. testing facilities).
The local government settlement in 2021/22 was not as high as in 2020/21, as the recovery began to take effect.
By 2022/23, core local government funding – including general revenue grant, NDR income and specific grants – is slightly lower in real terms than it was in 2017/18 (Chart 2). If we also include additional funding from the Scottish Government that is transferred into the local government settlement from other portfolios, then the story is that local government funding from the Scottish government is around 3.5% higher in 2022/23 than in 2017/18.
These additional revenues include £380m for health and social care integration and mental health, £234m to pay the living wage to social care staff, and £150m for additional teaching and support staff in schools. It does make sense to include these elements in the calculation. But even so, the 3.5% real terms funding increase has to be seen within the context of a significant increase in local government’s delivery responsibilities over the same period.
In other words, whilst the story of the past five years has not been one of funding cuts – at least as clearly as at the last election – local government’s funding settlement has nonetheless been very constrained.
Chart 2:Local government core funding from Scottish Government, real terms.
Source: For 2017/18 to 2021/22, Provisional Outturn and Budget Estimates (POBE); for 2022/23, Local Government Finance Circular 1/2022.
One result of this funding constraint is a further concentration of local government spending on education and social care. Between 2017/18 and 2021/22 (the latest year for which data is available), spending on education increased 6% in real terms, whilst for social work the increase was 5%. The flipside of this was a 9% real terms decline in local government spending on cultural services and an 8% decline in environmental services spending.
Despite these funding pressures, overall satisfaction with council services had held up reasonably well, at least until 2019 – the latest year for which we have comparable data (Chart 3). However, there was also some evidence of a decline in satisfaction with particular aspects of local government service delivery in 2017 and 2018. This coincides with a period when local government funding was cut particularly rapidly. It will be interesting to see how this trend is affected by the pandemic once data is available.
Chart 3:Percentage of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing with various statements about local services.
Source: FAI analysis of Scottish Household Survey
Looking ahead
Local government will retain a critical role over the next five years in delivering key Scottish government priorities and commitments, particularly around childcare, educational attainment, and climate objectives (e.g. in relation to improvements to the housing stock and active travel plans). And clearly, major existing agendas such as health and social care integration and digitalisation of public services will remain high priorities.
Yet at the same time, it is hard to see an immediate reversal in the broad trend of funding constraint. The forthcoming Scottish government Spending Review, to be published in May, should shed further light on the funding outlook for 2023/24 and 2024/25.
In addition to consideration of the local government funding envelope in totality, local government will be interested to know more about the outlook for its core budget, relative to elements of the budget that are ringfenced in some way.
The government has committed to work with local authorities to produce a fiscal framework for local government this parliament. The expectation is that this might set out clearer criteria about when it is or isn’t appropriate for local government funding resources to be ringfenced. But the timescales for production of the review are not yet known.
A major area of uncertainty is what the future of social care will mean for local government.
The Scottish government has set out its intentions to establish a new National Care Service by 2026. There are a number of well-founded justifications for the proposed National Care Service, including parity with the NHS, stronger opportunities for staff retention, and consistency of service across the country.
But there is little clarity yet about what the reforms will mean for the role of local government in shaping local priorities. COSLA has accused the proposals as representing an attack on localism.
Another uncertainty is the prospects for local tax reform. The past five years have seen relatively little movement on this front. The government has introduced legislation to allow local authorities to introduce Workplace Parking Levies, although the practical advantage of this as a policy has been temporarily stymied by the pandemic.
Debates around the introduction of local powers over tourism levies is progressing slowly. On council tax, the SNP-Green Collaboration Agreement makes the case for a ‘fairer, more inclusive and fiscally sustainable form of local taxation’. It proposes a process of deliberative engagement and a citizens jury to consider reforms in further detail. Whether this process culminates in a more concrete political willingness to reform council tax than previous processes remains to be seen.
The past five years have seen no major revolutions of local government financing arrangements or public services delivery. But evolution continues at pace. Local government played a critical role in supporting the pandemic response, and continues to play an increasingly important role in delivering core Scottish government commitments in areas from child poverty and the cost of living crisis to climate change.
The next five years may see more substantive evolution in the role and responsibility of local government in Scotland. Whether this happens in a way that enhances, or further erodes, public engagement with local democracy remains to be seen.
A detailed analysis of how Covid-19 business support funding was distributed during the pandemic is not possible due to gaps in data, according to spending watchdog Audit Scotland.
The Scottish Government provided about £4.4 billion of grants and non-domestic rate reliefs between March 2020 and October 2021, mostly paid out to businesses by councils. The government announced a further £375 million of support in December 2021 following the emergence of the Omicron variant.
Steps were taken to improve the management of funding during the pandemic.
But there was not enough focus on gathering detailed data on how money was distributed and how quickly applicants received funding.
This means:
The Scottish Government does not have an analysis of the total amounts paid out from the more general schemes to different economic sectors
For sector specific funding administered by national organisations such as Scottish Enterprise, around 20 per cent of payments cannot currently be matched to council areas
Similarly, information to enable wider analysis of how funding supported specific groups, such as the female owned businesses disproportionately hit by Covid-19, is not available from Scottish Government centrally held data.
In late 2021, the Scottish Government completed retrospective impact assessments to consider how business support funding addressed inequalities. A retrospective fraud review of funding that councils administered was also carried out.
The government is currently undertaking a large data cleansing exercise to ensure that the datasets for individual funds, including those administered by councils, are complete.
Covid-19 business support schemes were administered at pace in exceptional circumstances.
But knowing where the money went matters, to get future policy development and delivery right.
Stephen Boyle, Auditor General for Scotland, said: “These business support schemes were administered at pace in exceptional circumstances. But knowing where the money went matters.
“To get future policy development and delivery right, it will be important for the Scottish Government to fully understand how funding was used to support specific businesses and groups over the last two years of the pandemic.”
William Moyes, Chair of the Accounts Commission, said: “Councils’ fraud arrangements are generally robust, but they were heavily relied upon to ensure businesses were eligible for funding during the pandemic.
“Councils will need to continue to work closely with the Scottish Government to ensure a better picture emerges of how money was distributed.”
Responding to the Audit Scotland report, Economy Secretary Kate Forbes said: “I am pleased that both Audit Scotland and the Accounts Commission have recognised how quickly the Scottish Government was able to establish a wide ranging business support package in order to help safeguard thousands of businesses and jobs.
“This includes providing direct support to over 4,000 businesses and over 5,000 self-employed people who were facing hardship but ineligible for UK Government funding support.
“I am equally pleased this report reflects the unique and challenging context in which new support packages had to be established, and that despite the speed and scale of our response, we were able to work closely with industry, our enterprise agencies and local authorities.
“This helped to ensure the delivery of the business support funding was a shared endeavour and minimised risk and fraud. Without the efforts of our partners, we wouldn’t have been able to deliver this lifeline support at the scale and pace necessary and I thank them for working so closely with us.
“Every decision the Scottish Government has taken has centred around ensuring businesses got the support they needed when they needed it – resulting in over £4.5 billion being allocated to businesses across the country, including around £1.6 billion in rates relief – which is more generous than the other UK administrations so far.
“We will now carefully consider the findings of this report and of course any lessons will be learned, but fundamentally this report shows the decisions we took ensured lifeline support reached key businesses promptly and our economy continued to grow by 7.1% despite the necessary public health restrictions.”
‘For two years now, we have demonstrated incredible resilience as a Council’ – Finance Convener Cllr Rob Munn
A budget ‘designed to support residents through the cost-of-living crisis and invest in local communities’ has been set by the City of Edinburgh Council.
Agreed by elected members on Thursday (24 February), millions of pounds from the Council’s annual budget for 2022/23 will be spent towards shaping a more sustainable, fair and thriving future for Edinburgh post-pandemic.
A fair city?
Councillors have agreed to direct an extra £1.1m towards easing the cost of living crisis for the city’s most vulnerable and £150 for 33,000 low-income households across the city at a total cost of £4.95m. This is on top of national cash grants announced by the Scottish Government.
Alongside this, an extra £100 will be provided for every child within a low-income home (identified via free school meals qualifications) and an additional £450k will be made available by the Council in crisis grant funding.
Frontline services will continue to be protected and the Council’s rent freeze for tenants will remain in place for another year.
Together with the Council’s ongoing £2bn programme to build 5,500 sustainable, quality Council homes and invest £1.3bn over the next 15 years in a new, green, well-connected neighbourhood at Granton Waterfront, around half a million pounds will be spent to provide social care adaptations to people’s houses to allow them to live more independently in their own homes.
£112k has been earmarked to make sure every school in the city is equipped with a life-saving defibrillator, and the Council will continue to invest £454m in capital investment for new school facilities across the city over the next ten years, together with an annual £48m to help families access 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare.
The roll out of 40,000 digital devices to school pupils across the city to close the digital divide will also continue, thanks to investment of nearly £18m. In recognition of pressures faced during Covid, £1m of additional funding will be provided for Children’s Services, while a further £2m will be invested adopting the recommendations of the Tanner review.
A welcoming city?
A one-off £1.1m ‘deep clean’ will remove graffiti and address street cleansing in the city centre and local wards, while quarter of a million pounds will see a new, Neighbourhood Action Team created to tackle hot spot areas of unkept land and deal with issues like overgrowth and fly tipping.
An extra £1m will be set aside for road and pavement maintenance to improve movement around the city and £450k will help to improve park facilities, creating even better green spaces in every ward and improved lighting. Meanwhile an extra £325k will be invested in playparks and £130k in expanding provisions for food growing across the city.
There will be £200k invested towards temporary toilets in select parks – repeating successful arrangements from summer 2021 – and £60k will be set aside to provide seasonal improvements and rangers to Pentland parks. An additional £60k will be contributed towards works to complete the restoration of the Portobello Kilns.
This is alongside £150k to be spent regulating and monitoring short-term lets in Edinburgh and related issues of anti-social behaviour.
A thriving and sustainable city?
An additional half a million pounds will support Edinburgh’s Net Zero ambitions, accelerating the city’s One Million Tree City programme, and £200k will be invested in Energy for Edinburgh, the Council’s publicly owned ESCO, to allow a zero-carbon energy project to move forward.
Up to £100k will be spent through Participatory Budgeting, supporting local communities to be involved in the running of the city, and £200k will be used to support local community festivals, including Edinburgh’s Diwali and the Leith Festival.
A commitment of £60k will support the re-opening of the city’s libraries after use as Covid testing facilities and the new Meadowbank Sports Centre will open later this year.
Spend of £160k will be directed towards taxi regulation and enforcement; £180k of funding will be set aside to cover potential costs relating to the temporary Hostile Vehicle Mitigation arrangements protecting the city centre; and £50k will be used to upgrade the ForeverEdinburgh website to further drive footfall to local businesses as Edinburgh recovers from the pandemic.
Finance and Resources Convener SNP Councillor Rob Munn said: “This Budget signals a more sustainable, fair and thriving future for Edinburgh post-pandemic.
“For two years now, we have demonstrated incredible resilience as a Council and as a City, banding together to support those who have needed extra help. We have been at the forefront throughout and as life finally – and thankfully – starts to return to normal, we will continue to safeguard our services and focus on getting things back up and running.
“Our city centre and local high streets have suffered through lockdown restrictions and due to the cost of living, families on low incomes are struggling to make ends meet. The decisions we’ve made today aim to challenge these disadvantages and help our City and communities thrive in the year ahead.
“We’ll direct £1.1m each towards a ‘deep clean’ of the city centre and local areas and improving roads, helping to make Edinburgh a more welcoming place to be, and a further £1.1m will address poverty and inequality to create a fairer future.
“These are just a few of the very welcome spending decisions we’ve been able to make and I’m grateful to members in all parties for shaping these plans, but we do need to remain prudent. Times are hard and we know that the impact of Covid on our budget will continue into future financial years and significant savings will have to be made.”
Vice Finance and Resources Convener Labour Councillor Joan Griffiths said: “This Budget is about giving Edinburgh the chance to recover and grow as we safeguard our frontline services.
“The impact the pandemic continues to have on residents, on businesses and in our communities is clear. We’re now facing a cost of living crisis and it’s vital that we prioritise support for those who need it most.
“As we recover from everything the last two years have brought, investment enabled by a modest increase in Council Tax rates will help people in every single one of our communities, with the extra money raised used to maintain critical frontline services.
“We’re determined to use this budget to help us close the poverty gap, and we’ve also committed to keeping rents frozen this year for Council tenants. We’re putting more money into crisis grants, into new schools and new homes – while spending millions on community improvements.
“All of this will go towards making Edinburgh the most welcoming, thriving, and sustainable place it can be.”
This will be the SNP-Labour ‘Capital Coalition’s’ last budget before May’s council elections.
New Council Tax rates will be brought into effect on 1 April 2022 as follows:
An amendment will be brought forward during Stage 2 of the Budget Bill to allocate an additional £120 million to local authorities. The funding represents the equivalent of a 4% Council Tax rise.
Finance Secretary Kate Forbes said whilst councils have full flexibility in setting local council tax rates, there is no requirement for any inflation-busting increases in 2022-23.
The money is being made available after the UK Government advised that the Scottish Government should anticipate further funding for 2021-22, funding which will be confirmed at the Spring Supplementary Estimates next month.
Speaking during the Stage One Budget Bill debate, Ms Forbes said: “I am in no doubt about the important role local authorities play in our communities and in helping manage our ongoing response to the pandemic. I also understand the financial challenges they face.
“The 2022-23 Scottish Budget remains fully allocated and for weeks the UK Government has been telling us not to expect further funding. That has now suddenly changed and the UK Government has advised that we should anticipate further funding for 2021-22 which will be confirmed at the Spring Supplementary Estimates next month.
“Consequently I now have some new flexibility and am pleased to confirm my intention to utilise the Scotland Reserve to carry forward sufficient funding to allow me to allocate a further £120 million of resource to local government. Councils will have complete flexibility to allocate this additional funding as they wish in 2022-23.
“Councils asked for an additional £100 million to deal with particular pressures. We have heard them and listened and we are going to go further. This will allow them to deal with the most pressing issues they face.
“At a time when people are understandably worried about the cost of living, I would point out this increase in funding would be equivalent to a 4% increase in Council Tax next year, so whilst councils have full flexibility in setting local council tax rates, I do not believe that there is a requirement for any inflation-busting increases next year.”
With the role of the Councillor changing dramatically over the last few years, the time is right to review the job – and its pay, COSLA said this week.
COSLA President Councillor Alison Evison says there has to be a ‘realistic’ review of remuneration for the role, and called for the Scottish Government to look at Councillors’ salaries.
The current offering of £18,604 per year simply ‘does not cut the mustard,’ said Councillor Evison, especially given Councillors work on average, 38.5 hours per week according to our research.
COSLA is now calling for Councillors to be paid the Real Living Wage, as a minimum.
“In less than five months, on May 5, Scotland once again goes to the polls to elect the representatives who are the closest to their communities – their local Councillors.
“The Survey we are releasing today is a pivotal opportunity to think about the kind of modern Councillor we want, and about the changes that we need to make to attract candidates who could make a real difference to communities across the country.
“Together with my elected member colleagues, I already passionately believe in local democracy as a real positive force for good within our communities – that is why we stand for election. However to meet the next challenge we need realistic and proper remuneration that better reflects the role of a modern day Councillor.
“All of us within Scottish Local Government want to harness the power of a more locally democratic way of doing things, to enable a more diverse range of voices at the decision-making table, and to overhaul participation in council policy-making across the country – but people need to be properly remunerated to make this rhetoric a reality.”
Councillor Evison continued: “The current salary for a councillor is £18,604 and that quite frankly does not cut the mustard.
“A survey undertaken by COSLA as part of removing barriers to elected office work clearly shows that councillors from all political parties and none feel that the time has arrived for this new, radical and bold approach to Councillors’ remuneration as part of a wider package of action to increase Councillor diversity and address financial barriers to elected office for underrepresented groups.
“We are excited about what can be achieved, but we know that to attract a more diverse range of people to the role of the modern Councillor simply will not happen without a commitment from Scottish Government to look at Councillor remuneration.
“We are not asking for anything too bold, our starting point is that as a minimum, Councillors should be paid the Real Living Wage for hours worked.
“There would rightly be uproar if Councils did not pay their employees the Real Living Wage – therefore why not Councillors, who according to our survey findings work 38.5 hours per week?
“The Real Living Wage would still only put Councillors in the same bracket as the Care/Retail and Hospitality Sectors.”
Support for social care is to be intensified as a national priority alongside the NHS and emergency services, as staffing pressures and increased demand reflect the extent and nature of the spread and effect of Omicron.
As a result of staffing availability due to Covid, the Scottish Government and COSLA, working with local partners across the public services in Scotland, have agreed a joint approach to maximise social care support to ensure people receive the care they need, dignity and human rights are upheld, and to avoid further pressure falling on the NHS.
Some local public services report that pressure is very significant with some health and social care partnerships being asked to prioritise capacity and identify staff who can be deployed to sustain and maintain support for some of the most vulnerable people in society. This may mean some other services are temporarily paused or reduced to redeploy capacity and expertise.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney said: “In order to protect life preserving services, and protect the vulnerable, local authorities and public services will prioritise what they deliver in the weeks ahead as a result of staffing availability due to Covid.
“That may mean some services being closed for a period or operating on reduced hours or service levels. This will free up resources to make sure we can deliver core, essential services. As soon as demands and resources allow, any affected services will resume normal operation.
“People across public services and critical national infrastructure are working hard to keep essential services going. In a lot of cases they are already being asked to be flexible to cover for absent colleagues.
“I am grateful to everyone who is helping us through this difficult period. The Third Sector has a huge amount to offer while the private sector and employers can contribute, either by releasing staff who can help in this effort, or by supporting carers leave for family and friends who might need it.
“Local public services are delivering national priorities and programmes such as testing and vaccination programmes, delivering business grants, self-isolation grants and support, and much more.
“They have played a key role throughout the pandemic in supporting vulnerable people and key workers. That partnership between local and national government is, and will remain, essential.”
COSLA President Alison Evison said: “Once again, no matter the ask, councils along with other public services will rise to the challenge in terms of providing an appropriate local response. As the sphere of government closest to our communities across Scotland, once more Local Government will play our part in the Covid response.
“Where pressures on staffing levels are identified, help and support for those most vulnerable as well as the life and limb services in our communities will be prioritised. As it has been throughout the pandemic, Health and Social Care and keeping people safe will be front and centre of local prioritisation.”
Scottish Government and Cosla Joint statement on social care support
