Scottish Community Alliance describes Government's report on community councils as 'moving the deckchairs around on the Titanic', 10 October 2012
(See original article here)
The Government’s consultation over the forthcoming Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill has stimulated a welter of useful discussion and good ideas. But throughout the process there’s been a gnawing worry that whatever emerges will be stymied by the fact that we have a serious structural problem within our system of local government. Compared with the rest of Europe, we don’t have a system of local government at all - such is the scale of it, it can only realistically be described as regional government. It’s been clear for some time that there’s no appetite within Holyrood to restructure local government and to make matters worse, nor is there any real interest in doing something about our long suffering and enfeebled community councils. In a recently published review into how the role and operation of community councils could be improved, the underlying assumption seems to be that maintaining the status quo with some minor adjustments is all that’s required. More like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
The Government’s consultation over the forthcoming Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill has stimulated a welter of useful discussion and good ideas. But throughout the process there’s been a gnawing worry that whatever emerges will be stymied by the fact that we have a serious structural problem within our system of local government. Compared with the rest of Europe, we don’t have a system of local government at all - such is the scale of it, it can only realistically be described as regional government. It’s been clear for some time that there’s no appetite within Holyrood to restructure local government and to make matters worse, nor is there any real interest in doing something about our long suffering and enfeebled community councils. In a recently published review into how the role and operation of community councils could be improved, the underlying assumption seems to be that maintaining the status quo with some minor adjustments is all that’s required. More like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.