The President of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), Pat Watters, today issued a pantomime statement that all of Scotland’s political parties are feeding the Scottish people political manifestos no better than junk food.
And the witless national media are headlining this earth shattering insight as ‘a strongly worded statement’.
The reality is that this is nothing more than a ploy for attention in a stand off situation between elected governments accountable to the country and a non-elected, unaccountable body representing some of the most deeply embedded negative vested interests in Scotland.
Mr Watters’ statement claims that: ‘options being put forward by the national parties in Scotland pose a threat to services at local government level and fail to provide answers to the country’s social problems’.
And this would be a stark contrast to the innovative, thoughtful, strategic, philosophical answers emanating from the enlightened and spiritually generous confines of COSLA?
Can anyone remember when an idea or a policy from COSLA ever chimed with the hearts and minds of the nation?
COSLA is a Stalinist enclave concerned with its own power and its own continuation above even the interests of the local authorities who pay it high annual membership fees – and cover significant expenses – with taxpayers money.
We elect our local councillors. COSLA is an uber organisation beyond election.
The real game
What is really going in is a last ditch battle by COSLA to retain the basis for its own existence.
Fed up with the poor management, the erratic delivery, the expensive duplications and the empires of vanity built across 32 local authorities, the Scottish Government has made it known latterly that it is exploring the benefit of centralising certain key services – like education, care and the police.
This would remove massive chunks of local authority revenue grants and, with that loss, very significantly reduce both the need for COSLA and local authorities’ ability to pay for it.
Never mind the fact that the services could be run much better and with greater consistency – the existence of the unaccountable, protectionist gravy train that is COSLA is what really matters.
The war is on.
The excuse for it is risible. Is any member of the public going to get excited because party election manifestos are little more than cappucino foam? When have they been anything else? And COSLA produces no manifestos, nor did Mr Watters offer anything except palliatives alongside his criticism.
Far from being a generator of ideas and innovation beyond the capability of political parties, all COSLA wants is the status quo – and look where that’s got us.
COSLA singlehandedly cost Argyll hard cash
Argyll and Bute has good reason to know just what COSLA is – from financial pain that will reverberate for years in this far from wealthy area.
In late summer of 2010, COSLA asked the Scottish Government to change the formula by which the annual revenue grants to local authorities are calculated. They asked for the reinstatement of redundant grants known as ‘Supporting People’ grants and they asked for the ring fencing that had previously governed these grants to be reintroduced.
Scottish Government officials were taken by surprise at this request – because it had been a condition of the Council Tax freeze agreed in 2007 by the current Scottish Government and COSLA that no aspect of local authority revenue grants would be controlled in this way and that councils would be free to allocate their overall revenue budget as they saw fit.
Officials were also surprised that the approach from COSLA did not include an associated request to reintroduce the ‘flooring’ mechanism – which had previously accompanied the grants they wanted reintroduced and which protected any local authority from an unanticipated loss of revenue funding below a certain level (or ‘floor’).
We understand that the officials queried this, in case COSLA had overlooked it and were told that they were not asking for the ‘flooring’ device to be brought back.
Argyll and Bute’s leadership agreed both to the changes requested by COSLA (on 25th September 2010) and to the revenue budget for Argyll and Bute these changes produced (on 19th November 2010). In both cases, the leadership gave approval on trust and without either being given or independently calculating the financial impact.
Realisation came the hard way when the revenue grant figures for each of the 32 local authorities were published. Argyll and Bute got the highest budget cut in Scotland. This was all but doubled from the expected cut – due to the changes COSLA had requested, unmitigated by the flooring mechanism COSLA had asked not to be reinstated.
Favoured councils, shown by energetic opposition councillors in Argyll and Bute – George Freeman and James Robb, to be those to which the main COSLA hierarchy belong, just happened to have done very well at the expense of Argyll and Bute, the worst casualty, and others less badly affected.
The Scottish Government offered to put £5 million into a pot to be shared out by COSLA between adversely affected councils and suggested that if COSLA – the body responsible for the losses – were to match this from its own funds, the affected councils losses would be wiped out.
COSLA chose to contribute nothing – but it did share out the Scottish Government’s £5 million. Argyll and Bute had lost an additional £5.6 million cut because of COSLA’s strange manoeuvres. It got £1.31 million from the share out.
Whatever Government emerges from the Scottish Election on 5th May 2011, it will require, as a matter of urgency, to address the need for local government reform. This must include the centralisation of key services, which is more cost-efficient and fits a country with the population size of Scotland very much better than the wasteful duplications we suffer now.
Saw this tonght and was intrigued not only in Pat Watter’s statement but in the wholly uncritical way that the BBC reported upon it.
How easily they seem able to overlook Mr Watter’s own political allegiance!
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Just a reminder for newsroom that of the original £5m bail-out from the Scottish Government Argyll & Bute failed to secure a fair share in the COSLA cash grab.
Magnanimously the Scottish Government responded to some quiet pleas for help – that the residents of A&B should not suffer from this fiasco. It found another £2.455m to bring A&BC’s share up to what it should have been if COSLA had been fair and consistent. This time the money was kept well away from COSLA and given direct to A&BC.
The question now is how this additional bail-out to this council will be applied.
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What surprises me with your report is the statement ” suggested that if COSLA – the body responsible for the losses – were to match this from its own funds, the affected councils losses would be wiped out”. If COSLA have at least £5 Million then why do they do so. There seems to be at total lack of information on how and why they have these funds. Surely the troubled tax payer should be obtaining the benefit of them.
COSLA don’t seem to produce anything other than hot air and needless expense to Council Tax Payers. Yet another jolly for the boys and girls at our expense. This looks more like another gravy train for those who slavishly follow the party line as there do not appear to be many totally outstanding politicians in COSLA. If this is a resting place for the toadies do we need either COSLA and them.
How do we get rid of COSLA as they seem to be a fixture where A&Bs finest haha should be building their nuclear shelters in the hope that there is some where to hiode from the fallout of the Schools and budget fiascos.
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I would not be surprised if the Executive Group of Councillors (gang of 16) announce at the Council Meeting of 19th April 2011 that the £2.455m is being used to keep the under threat schools open for another year.
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