IT is four days since the local elections and we are still feeling the after-shocks. The extraordinary vote on Thursday ended Labour’s dominance of local government in Scotland and saw a revival in Tory fortunes. But as the parties try to work out where to go from here, the elections could mean more than just a change of council leadership – they could mean a change to the way Scotland’s councils do business.
The effects are already being seen at COSLA, the organization that represents most of Scotland’s councils, with the four authorities that broke away - Glasgow, Aberdeen, Renfrewshire and South Lanarkshire – now looking to return to the fold. The authorities walked out in a row over the Government’s financial settlement in 2014, but the elections have acted as a catalyst for change and before long it is expected all the councils will be back in the tent, represented again by one organisation.
But the question of who will lead that organization has potentially serious consequences for local government and its biggest party, the SNP. In the new landscape the local elections have ushered in, the two biggest contingents in COSLA will be the SNP and the Conservatives which raises the possibility at least of a Conservative president. That would take us into brand new territory – Labour has held the post of COSLA president since the organization was founded in the 1970s – but, with the SNP at Holyrood and a Tory running COSLA, it could also lead to a deterioration in the already difficult relationship between central and local government.
However, it is still much more likely that the post of president will go to the SNP, which in itself will pose some problems for the party. The first item on the agenda for every local authority in the next few weeks will be the finances and in particular where cuts can be made, and that creates a difficult situation for an SNP president of COSLA. The president’s job is to defend councils and fight cuts and that means an inevitable clash with the Government, SNP against SNP. It is unlikely to reach the levels of bitterness in the first years of the Scottish Executive when Labour was in charge of COSLA, but there is every chance the divisions in the SNP that have so far remained internal will become public.
The SNP has also found itself in a new situation where working arrangements will have to be found with Labour, the Lib Dems and, yes, even the Conservatives. This inevitably increases the risk of instability or paralysis in some parts of local government, but coalitions such as the SNP/Labour arrangement in Edinburgh prove that it can be done – and done on a large scale.
The new reality of local government could also be good for democracy. For decades, councils have been dominated by successive Labour administrations which some voters felt created a sense of entitlement or complacency. However, the STV voting system that was in use in last Thursday’s elections was designed to change all that and ten years on we are seeing the results: parties forced to work with each other. At a time of continuing austerity when big cuts to budgets will have to be managed, that may well be the best way to run our councils.
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