SUNDAY morning found me tip-toeing through an apocalyptic scene in Dundee city centre – testimony, shared around Scotland, that the bin strike is doing exactly what one would expect, which is why it should have been averted long before it happened.

My report from the front line is that the Scottish Government has lost this battle and should retreat without delay. Diversionary tactics failed, so pay up for Scotland! Everyone knows who holds the purse strings and it isn’t the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.

If the £140 million that was magicked up after weeks of wasted time had been available in the first place, there would probably have been no strike. There are other pots in St Andrew’s House, held back for lesser purposes, which can end this dispute. So get on with it.

Dundee reminded me of the immortal truth in Mary Brooksbank’s great Jute Mill Song: “Oh dear me, the world’s ill divided; them that work the hardest are the least provided.” The rapid descent into litter-strewn chaos suggested a modern, more prosaic variation: “Oh dear me, the people providing services on which we most depend are also the lowest-paid.”

If they are fighting back in face of current events, then good luck to them. The private sector has market mechanisms to determine pay, but with public services the equation is clearer. No more can come out than goes in and if local government is drained of cash then its low-paid workers will never advance.

The status and funding of Scotland’s councils are long overdue for fundamental review. The last major shake-up took place 30 years ago and a lot has changed. In particular, the last 15 years have seen the steady erosion of council funding and far greater budget ring-fencing from Edinburgh.

Back in 2011, the Scottish Government’s own Christie Commission produced a good report, little of which was ever acted upon. It warned: “The need for reform is now urgent. (Otherwise) the chance to fashion an effective, sustainable and valued form of delivering public services for the future may be lost”.

In 2014, Cosla’s own Commission on Strengthening Local Democracy concluded: “A radical transfer of power to communities is essential if we are to rebuild confidence in Scotland’s democracy and improve outcomes across the country”.

As for funding, there have been near-annual broken promises about council tax with only minor tinkering to show for it. Our high streets cry out for ways to incentivise occupancy rather than demand business rates which create even more empty spaces. Maybe local councils would have more ideas than Edinburgh?

So while there has been no shortage of commissions and promises, the “transfer of powers” continued to go in the wrong direction. In 2019, Professor James Mitchell defined what we are left with as “essentially local administration rather than local government”.

Three years later, he told this week's Sunday Herald: “They (councils) basically do what they’re told and money is often tied to that … local knowledge has been sucked out of the system … the Scottish Government has essentially devolved penury, devolved the difficult decisions, and kept as much of the money as possible.”

Prof Mitchell was more an enthusiast for Holyrood than I ever was and is genuinely surprised by how it has evolved. I’m not. However, we would be on the same side about the need to draw a line and start again in order to redefine devolution in the interests of outcomes and democracy.

This will not happen under the current architects of Edinburgh centralisation. However, all other parties could surely unite around a major review of how local government is organised, empowered and funded with a commitment to enacting an agreed model if and when there is regime change at Holyrood.

There is precedent for cross-party co-operation. In the late 1960s, the Labour government established the Wheatley Commission which recommended the creation of regional authorities. This was largely enacted by the incoming Tories.

Last time round, in the early 1990s, Labour did not fight too hard about losing the regions because its focus was on creating a Scottish Parliament and it would not have been realistic to have Strathclyde, which accounted for half Scotland’s population, sitting under it. So again there was a degree of consensus.

The need now is to come up with a structure which defines the powers of local government, protects them from further encroachment and restores flexibility to raise money and spend it in ways most appropriate to their own communities.

Radical ideas need to be embraced. Would Glasgow have got into its current condition if there was a directly-elected mayor/provost? I doubt it – so bring them on, as Anas Sarwar suggested last week. Scotland is crying out for strong, alternative power centres.

And what about the lowest level of devolution? Community councils never worked because they had neither powers nor money. Yet a lot that affects community wellbeing and morale only matter at very local level.

Let me offer one example from my weekend perambulations round Scotland. I also visited my home town of Dunoon and found the trademark Victorian pier looking as if it is waiting for a man with a clipboard to condemn it – “Dunoon’s poor old pier” as a Herald article described it last week.

Would that have happened if there was still local government at its most basic level? Similar questions are asked in communities around Scotland about prized assets that have fallen into decay. If there is a structure which can embrace a degree of pure localism, that should not be ruled out either.

Even the smallest communities in France have mayors and local councils. It is entirely within Scotland’s gift to create a model of local government that draws on that kind of influence rather than relies on something drawn up 30 years ago which commands no great affection.

True devolution can take account of all that. It should foster civic pride. It should devolve decision-making to the lowest sensible level. It should spread resources fairly, rather than as largesse from myriad government-controlled funds. And it might even offer workers the pay they deserve.

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