Friday 18th December, 2015

Two weeks ago COSLA warned that councils across Scotland face a half billion pound squeeze next year, leading to “severe” reductions in services. Edinburgh council has major worries with 2000 staff facing the chop and community groups, play facilities, museums, libraries and even lollipop ladies being cut.

The Scotsman reported that it may be possible, however, to avoid some or all of these cutbacks by sharing services with other councils – roads and education for example.

Most councils in England adopted the shared services approach years ago. Scotland did not, and now has the highest number of public sector staff per head of population of any country in Europe. Some progress has admittedly been made: the 2011 Christie Commission pushed for public bodies to share services and the results so far have been Police Scotland and Creative Scotland among others. Last year saw East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire councils launch the Ayrshire Roads Alliance. But local authorities have mostly ducked the issue.