Case Study: A piece of cable five miles long will soon signal the future of local government in Scotland.
A PIECE of cable five miles long will soon signal the future of local government in Scotland.
The high speed data connection, to be laid alongside the railway track between Alloa and Stirling, will link staff working for both Clackmannanshire and Stirling councils and allow them to make free phone calls to each other. It will save hundreds of thousands of pounds a year as dealings between authorities become more frequent.
Clackmannanshire is known locally as the "Wee County" and is the smallest on mainland Scotland, serving just 50,000 residents. Residents in Alloa said yesterday they approve of the way it operates: councillors can be contacted easily, jobs get done with relative ease.
But there are limitations. Clackmannanshire might be small and effective, but it has to provide the same services as a larger local authority with a smaller pot of resources, fewer staff, and sometimes less expertise than its metropolitan or bigger neighbours.
Clackmannanshire has already harnessed a good collaborative relationship with Stirling. Trading standards for the "Wee County" are mostly carried out by staff based in the city and the two work together on matters such as roads maintenance and waste management. Clackmannanshire, Stirling, and Falkirk work on a rota to repair broken streetlights over the weekend.
But more fundamental changes are taking place. IT services between Clackmannanshire and Stirling are to fuse, to create stronger buying power, and one educational assessment team is currently being put in place.
Clackmannanshire is also one of five local authorities, alongside Perth and Kinross, East Dunbartonshire, Stirling, and Falkirk, considering a merger of back office functions to save money in a new "joint services" regime.
Dave Jones, chief executive of Clackmannanshire Council, said: "We have to plough our own furrow most of the time, but we like to work with others too. The opportunity to share costs is the biggest benefit. For example, doing joint training has been very successful."
On overhauling back office staff, Mr Jones added: "If you think about it, you have five different payrolls, five different HR departments, and five sets of contractual agreements. What you need is one service which meets the needs of everyone.
"But it needs an injection of money to kick it off. It looked like it was going to have the support of the government before the SNP got in. There is still a will to do this."
For father and son John and John Flynn, aged 79 and 48, Clackmannanshire Council is just right they way it is. Mr Flynn senior said: "I came here to leave Easterhouse and the council suits the small community. You know the councillors and everything seems to run quite smoothly."
His son added: "It's compact and you get the impression that each department knows what the next is doing."
Labour councillor Kenneth Earl said that the council's smaller scale allowed it to be more accessible to the public and said locals "would put up a fight" if a merger with neighbouring authorities was on the cards.
However, he said he supported the idea of joint services. "We have got to be realistic. We don't have the expertise or the necessary resources to deal effectively with all the issues. It makes perfect sense to work with other councils."
Mother of two Emma Burton, a nurse, thought the council worked well but could see the merit of linking with other authorities, given her experiences in the NHS. "You get things like pooled budgets and a greater shared responsibility.
People know more what they are doing and things like clearer paperwork make a massive difference."
