Social care reform - again!

 The new Programme for Government signals a renewed effort to advance social care reform. After the National Care Service (NCS) debacle, the government is now proposing to “use these next three months to engage with local authorities, trades unions, and healthcare and service providers to reach agreement on reform of social care.” However, the First Minister has also said, “Although I am not proposing a prescriptive solution, I cannot see how we can deliver integration of social care without the National Health Service being in the lead.” This comes as the programme also plans to slash health boards from 14 to two and begin discussions on local government reform. I explain the implications of this in a new briefing for the Reid Foundation.

I was speaking about social care at a meeting in Edinburgh recently, before this latest initiative. I was fairly downbeat about the prospects of making progress, although the meeting itself was more positive. It was agreed that the Feeley Review went too far on centralisation, and the Scottish Government compounded the problem, bringing the whole NCS plan into disrepute. Several people at the meeting, including those on the advisory group, felt we should not lose sight of the Feeley report’s positive aspects.

It is unclear how broad the Scottish Government’s review of social care will be. They drew it too broadly in their NCS proposals. Social care covers children, young people, and disabled people, although the elderly are often the focus. While one in 23 people in Scotland receives formal social care, three-quarters are over 65. 97,000 people receive care at home and 34,000 in residential care, mostly in the private sector. This is formal, assessed social care, while 800,000 are cared for by unpaid carers. The Scottish Government sets overall strategy, with local delivery handled by Health and Social Care Partnerships, although councils and the NHS employ the workers. The FM has also signalled that he sees an end to the partnerships, saying, “That was the purpose of the integration joint boards, and I think that we have all come to the conclusion that however well-intentioned that approach was, it has not delivered the level of integration that is required.”

50,000 workers are employed in care homes, and 75,000 in home care. With other private care provision, around 200,000 (mostly women) work in this sector, making it a major economic contributor. The private sector has a very high turnover rate of 43%, compared with 11% in other sectors. The FM has not indicated who will employ the workers, but if he plans to shift them into the NHS, that really will create a massive HR problem, with equal pay being a particular challenge.

While there will rightly be scepticism about the level of centralisation being proposed, the challenges facing social care are enormous and urgently need solutions. We have a growing proportion of elderly people (25% increase in o/75s by 2030), which will drive extra demands on social care, particularly in Scotland, with healthy life expectancy flatlining due to health inequalities. Recruiting enough workers to run the service will become increasingly difficult due to demographic shifts in the working population and the cessation of immigration. Paying the Scottish Living Wage helps, but workers are still low-paid and can earn the same wage in far less onerous jobs. Workforce planning to address this is limited, and the long-awaited collective bargaining structures are still moving slowly. Technology may help a bit, but there are no Ann Droid’s coming to save us!

Health and Social Care Partnerships are already underfunded with a budget shortfall of £449m. Andy Burnham is driving reform in England, hopefully faster than his predecessor, although the focus is on care home fees. That may result in extra Barnett funding, but not quickly. We have huge provider fragmentation, which creates bureaucracy for social workers trying to find packages. Few plans address the privatisation of large care homes, which have high debt ratios and related costs that take £28 of every £100 spent. As the STUC study shows, they are more likely to be lower quality, pay lower wages, and spend less on staff: 58% on staff compared to 75% in not-for-profit homes. 

While social care should be addressed in its own right, we cannot ignore the impact on the NHS. Delayed discharge takes over one in nine hospital beds, at a cost of £440m. That doesn’t mean the NHS should take over social care; it means building the capacity to ensure patients are discharged when they are ready, and that will free up bed capacity in hospitals. Social care organisations have rightly highlighted the very different care models used in both services. 

The two-health board solution is simply shorthand for running the NHS and social care from St Andrew’s House. The two boards have no geographical or delivery purpose; they will simply become two administrative departments. All local input into service delivery will be lost. That doesn’t mean that everything should be done locally. I have long argued that there should be national frameworks for issues like procurement, pay and conditions, even the one public service worker, outlined by Christie. This would allow local organisations to decide how services are delivered. I favour doing this through smaller local authorities, as they do in Norway, and leave acute NHS services to three or four health boards.

The drive for ever-increasing centralisation of public services is a real worry for those who believe in local democracy. Communities are best placed to decide on the provision of services, with appropriate national frameworks. Ministers and their civil servants in Edinburgh are not the solution.

Keep Britain Working

 Keep Britain Working is the final report of the Mayfield Review into the issues surrounding ill-health and disability in the workplace. Earlier this year, I wrote, with Ian Tasker of Scottish Hazards, a paper for the Jimmy Reid Foundation, Tackling the Causes of Working Age Ill Health, covering similar ground.

We share a common understanding of the problem. As the report says, "Over one in five working-age adults are out of the workforce, substantially because of health problems. Mental ill-health among young people is rising sharply. Older workers are leaving too early. Disabled people remain locked out of work at twice the rate of non-disabled people." It is also true that other countries do better. 

We also have common ground in diagnosing the problem. He found three persistent problems:

• a culture of fear, that is felt by employees and, differently, by employers, especially line managers. This creates distance between people and discourages safe and early disclosure, constructive conversations and support just when they are needed most
• a lack of an effective or consistent support system for employers and their employees in managing health and tackling barriers faced by disabled people. This lack of support is sometimes compounded by a ‘fit note’ system that is not working as intended
• structural challenges for disabled people, creating barriers to starting and staying in work. Compared to international comparators, the UK lacks systemic levers to support disabled people in work, leaving them disproportionately excluded and talent wasted.

The Mayfield solution is "a fundamental shift from a model where health at work is largely left to the individual and the NHS, to one where it becomes a shared responsibility between employers, employees and health services." This includes a recognition that employers need to do more. This was the core message in our paper. Sadly, the Mayfield Review paints too rosy a picture of existing occupational health provision. As we pointed out, very few employers (as low as 3%) invest in the wider range of services that occupational health professionals can provide. For too many employers, the solution to ill health at work is increasingly punitive absence management systems and dismissal. The review also almost entirely ignores the role of safety in the workplace and cuts to the HSE.

The Healthy Working Cycle recommended in the report is fine, as far as it goes. The major failing in the report is the lack of a structural change to ensure it actually happens. His solution is "the development of a Workplace Health Provision (WHP) which is built from the range of existing provision but looks to amplify, expand and improve the availability of it."

The report's delivery option is "a flexible, market-led solution, with employers funding the provision and choosing certified providers that meet their needs. Providers will be assessed against national standards – possibly stewarded by government – giving employers access to a wide range of trusted options." There is very little stick and a marginal carrot in this solution, other than "Over time we would expect that this provision would be formalised and certified." The question any reasonable person would ask is, when we look at where we have got to under the current arrangements, what makes you think employers and their totally inadequate occupational health providers will change?

I don't disagree that employers should fund improved occupational health, as it is their statutory duty, albeit one that is little enforced. However, we recommended "An integrated approach to working-age health, underpinned by including occupational health and vocational rehabilitation in mainstream health care, which no longer relies on inadequate private sector providers." This could be funded in a similar way to the Apprenticeship Levy, which ensures that all employers, regardless of their performance, contribute.

The Mayfield Review claims its changes are ambitious. Sadly, they fall well short of that. Having correctly diagnosed the problem, their recommendations are a hope that employers will change their ways. The cultural change that is needed should have a statutory underpinning; otherwise, in another ten years, we will be asking the same questions, with thousands more workers excluded from work due to ill health. The taxpayer will be picking up the bill, with economic growth a pipe dream.

Outdated and Unfair: The Case for Council Tax Reform

 I have been working with the Tax Justice Scotland campaign on the case for Council Tax reform. This week, we have published a briefing that throws down the gauntlet to Scotland’s politicians, demanding they end decades of inaction and commit to replacing the unfair and outdated Council Tax in their 2026 election manifestos.

There is cross-party agreement that Council Tax is unfit for purpose, and a broad consensus amongst the policy community, supported by several reviews, on the solution. It is now a decade since the 2015 cross-party Commission on Local Tax Reform concluded that ‘the present Council Tax system must end.’ The problem is a lack of political will – moving implementation from the ‘too difficult’ tray. We are therefore calling for concrete manifesto commitments to:

• Abolish Council Tax and replace it with a fair, modern property tax.
• Launch a national revaluation of property as a first step in the next Parliament.
• Ensure the new system is local, proportional, and protects those on low or fixed incomes, while ensuring effective transition support is in place.

It is beyond absurd that properties are still valued for tax purposes as if it were 1991. I recall giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament Local Government Committee in the mid-2000s, pointing out that it was then 15 years since a valuation, and asking how much longer? 20, 25, 30 years? Well the answer was even more than that!  The uneven distribution of house price increases has also led to many properties with similar 1991 values having wildly different values in 2025. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that over half of properties are in the wrong Council Tax band relative to where they would be if valuations were brought up to date. This has further entrenched the regressive nature of Council Tax, with the burden falling most heavily on people in less valuable properties. 

The consequences of the failure to reform can be seen in every community, with councils raising charges for services or cutting them entirely, which most negatively impacts those least able to afford them. The regressive and inflexible nature of Council Tax makes it difficult for councils to use it as an effective tool for funding public services. A prolonged period of nationally imposed Council Tax freezes in Scotland further restricted local councils’ already limited financial autonomy relative to comparable countries. Think of taxes like paying into a pot we all draw on: it’s how we keep our schools and libraries open, our care homes running, reduce the cost of public transport, and keep our streets safe. It’s about paying for the  foundations (the social infrastructure) that make our society one that we all want to live in.

The briefing explains why successive studies have agreed that a reformed property tax is the best solution. A reformed tax on property recognises that property is a major source of wealth in Scotland, but one that is glaringly unequal. That is particularly true on a generational basis, with rates of property ownership among younger generations much lower than among older ones, even at comparable points in their lives. Taxes on property are also more difficult to avoid or evade. A reformed property tax must be set locally and be based on a percentage of property value. It must be periodically reviewed and flexible to household circumstances. While it remains the most important local tax, action is also needed on business rates and other levies that could also make a significant contribution to funding essential local services.

We’ve had consultations, commissions and countless commitments, but little has changed. Decades of delay on Council Tax reform have deepened the crisis facing local services and locked in inequality. The 2026 election is the moment for Scotland’s leaders to move beyond words and commit to the fair, modern and proportionate tax system our communities deserve.

New Local Democracy for Scotland

I was in Edinburgh today, speaking at the launch of the New Local Democracy for Scotland Declaration.

Building a Local Scotland is a group of academics, trade unionists, former council leaders, and journalists who have launched a campaign to tackle the creeping centralisation that has left Scotland as one of the least locally governed countries in the world. You can read more on our website: https://buildlocal.scot.

In my contribution today, I argue that while the Scottish Parliament has brought democracy closer to Scotland, it hasn’t created the promised local democracy for our communities. Instead, we still have some of the largest basic council units in the world, and public services have been centralised.

Despite initiatives between COSLA and the Scottish Government, several commissions and numerous reports, we are no closer to achieving the principle of subsidiarity. In practice, powers have been stripped from councils and services such as police, fire, further education, and water have been centralised. Three-quarters of public spending is directed by Scottish Ministers, including around £23 billion spent by unelected quangos.

I have been involved with most of those initiatives. The Commission on Strengthening Local Democracy (2014) is a good starting point for understanding why local democracy matters. I was an expert advisor to the Christie Commission, which recommended, ‘A first key objective of reform should be to ensure that our public services are built around people and communities.’

The Jimmy Reid Foundation has published several reports on this issue. In Building Stronger Communities (2020), I argued that the starting point is subsidiarity, building integrated public services from the bottom up and sharing where appropriate. The role of central government should be to set the strategic direction based on outcomes – rather than trying to direct services from Edinburgh. In a paper published last week, Building the Local Economy, we highlight the impact of centralisation on the local economy.

However, a country the size of Scotland cannot justify duplication and difference for its own sake. Therefore, we need public service frameworks that allow local services to focus on what matters to achieve positive outcomes. Even where decentralisation is not viable, services should still be required to cooperate locally more effectively than currently. 

It sometimes feels that the only discussion around local government comes from those advocating directly elected mayors or provosts. These top-down initiatives have yet to produce a strong sense of local empowerment. Instead, they centralise power in a single individual, which could lead to unaccountable, authoritarian leadership.

There will be trade union and workforce concerns over creating a larger number of councils and other public bodies, along with cost concerns over duplication. This is where national frameworks are essential. Local decision-making should be focused on what’s important to communities, such as service design that reflects local needs. We do not need a hundred-plus procedures, different terms and conditions, contract documents, etc. Neither do we need a bureaucratic infrastructure of senior managers. This is an opportunity to explore the concept of a single public service worker on standard terms and conditions with joint introductory training for all jobs – both envisioned by the Christie Commission.

In an era dominated by austerity economics, local services continue to face the brunt of budget cuts. Successive administrations have ducked the reform of local government finance despite credible proposals in the Burt Report (2006) and The Commission on Local Tax Reform (2015). The Council Tax accounts for less than 20% of council expenditure. In European countries, the equivalent councils have between 50% and 60% of income raised locally. Local election turnout is generally significantly higher in countries with greater devolved taxation. Smaller councils on the European model also enable local people to engage with local democracy. The many initiatives to improve citizen engagement and participatory practices in Scotland have failed to engage working people because they haven’t put real power in the hands of recognisable communities. 

I view the Declaration as a starting point for a new conversation about genuine local democracy in Scotland and how we deliver public services. We must put right the forgotten aim of devolution - to disperse power not just from Westminster to Holyrood but onwards to communities. A comprehensive reform plan built up from communities not imposed from the centre. If you agree, please sign the declaration.

Devolution and the quango state

This week is the 25th anniversary of the first elections to the Scottish Parliament. Commentary typically focuses on how the Parliament has performed and how its procedures can be reformed. While I agree with many of the criticisms, the Scottish Parliament remains the most crucial democratic intervention in Scotland for a generation and more. For those like me who remember the pre-devolution position, the Scottish Parliament remains an outstanding institution. And despite the fractious politics of recent years, the public agrees. In the most recent Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, 63 per cent said that having a Scottish Parliament gives ordinary people more of a say in how Scotland is governed, while a similar proportion said it gives Scotland a stronger voice in the UK.

The biggest failure of devolution has been the absence of decentralisation to communities, a vision set out by the Constitutional Convention that has yet to be delivered. The woes of local government are well understood, but another aspect of centralised control, the quango state, is largely ignored. Rather than extending the principle of devolution within Scotland, the Scottish Government has retained all the transfers from Westminster and, in addition, has taken away functions from Local Government. Three-quarters of public spending is directed by Scottish Ministers, including around £23 billion spent by quangos.

This week, the Scotsman is running a welcome series on quangos, which may help shine some much-needed light on these institutions. The early easy targets are management salaries and the usual suspects who serve on them. However, we should ask if this centralised control over many of our public services is the best form of governance. The Scotsman started by struggling to define what the quango state consists of, settling on around 120 bodies. They include Executive Agencies, Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPB) and public corporations like Calmac and Scottish Water. They range from small advisory boards to substantial service delivery organisations like Skills Development Scotland and Scottish Enterprise. They include NHS Scotland, but the democratisation of the NHS is a more complex and different debate. The governance models vary, but typically, a board of around 14 people appointed by ministers runs them. 

In 2007, the Scottish Government undertook to simplify the public sector landscape by reducing the number of Scottish public bodies under its control. Like previous governments, they found the 'bonfire of the quangos' difficult to deliver. Ministers often find it useful to have arms-length bodies to deny operational responsibility for poor decisions, which I have previously called the 'not me guv' school of government. The problem is that in the absence of democratic accountability, the public often says, 'It is you guv'. The difficulty is that ministers need more time to scrutinise them, and the sponsoring departments adopt a light touch. The recent Water Industry Commission scandal demonstrates that clearly.

Relationships between NDPBs and their sponsoring departments can also be challenging. A National Audit Office study of English equivalents found that the arm’s-length bodies sector remains ‘confused and incoherent’. Audit Scotland has occasionally forayed into quangos with similar conclusions. Their 2010 paper concluded, ' The make-up of boards and their role has evolved over time rather than as a result of any objective evaluation of the best model for public accountability.’

Suggestions that they could be broken up and delivered locally are resisted because they allegedly benefit from economies of scale or are too specialised to spread the limited expertise around the country. Even attempts to minimise duplication by creating common bargaining structures have been opposed by the agencies and government. 

Options for reform include:

• Identifying all or parts of the services that could be delivered locally while retaining a national framework.

• Greater scrutiny by Parliament.

• Direct elections.

In my paper, Public Service Reform for the Reid Foundation, I set out some principles that should underpin this work. I developed them in a subsequent paper, Building Stronger Communities. The starting point is subsidiarity, building integrated public services from the bottom up and sharing where appropriate. The role of central government should be to set the strategic direction based on outcomes – rather than trying to direct services from Edinburgh. However, a country the size of Scotland cannot justify duplication and difference for the sake of it. Therefore, we need public service frameworks that allow local services to focus on what matters to achieve positive outcomes.

Even where decentralisation is not viable, services should still be required to cooperate locally more effectively than currently. The somewhat loose duties placed on quangos to collaborate in community planning have no effective teeth.

Scotland is one of the most centralised states in Europe. Until we address this centralisation of power, the devolution project will remain unfinished. Reforming the quango state is complex but necessary.

Public service reform is not a quick fix in a crisis

 The forthcoming Autumn Statement and Scottish Government Budget has inspired another round of calls for public service reform. Primarily wishful thinking as a substitute for public spending cuts, but the principle has merit.

The Chancellor appears to have some leeway in the Autumn Statement, although he wants to splash some of it on an Inheritance Tax cut that would benefit the wealthiest in society. This may shore up support for his boss on the back benches, but the politics are awful, particularly if it comes with benefits cuts for the most disadvantaged.

Audit Scotland has given a stark warning to the Scottish Government  in its annual audit of their accounts;

“The delivery of public services in their current form is not affordable, with inflationary pressures and public sector pay settlements having a significant impact. The Scottish Government must work with partners to develop a programme of public service reform, including workforce redesign, which balances the short-term financial pressures with the need for longer-term change, recognising that this may require financial investment.”

The Auditor was not alone in highlighting poor spending decisions. The ferry fiasco inevitably tops the list, with the latest final cost estimate approaching £600m. Then there is more than £50m on the BiFab fabrication yard, £52m on Prestwick Airport, £135m on the Lochaber smelter, up to £80m on the Rangers prosecution, and several IT projects. A less well-known example is the Shared Services Project. Many of us have been sceptical about the benefits of this approach in principle, but as predicted, costs have steadily risen. I'll believe the projected savings when they have been delivered!

While Tory MSPs regularly raise these issues in the Scottish parliament, they are less comfortable facing up to their own party’s record at Westminster. Nearly £100billion of taxpayers’ cash has been wasted, an average of £25billion every year since the 2019 election. The Best for Britain group’s chief executive, Naomi Smith, said: "The notion the Tories are safe with money has been blown out of the water. It's disgraceful the Government continues to squander public money while so many struggle to feed their families and heat their homes.”

The Scottish Government frequently references the National Performance Framework. However, as the Auditor also highlighted in his report, “I am concerned by the number of indicators not being reported five years after the first National Outcomes were agreed and it remains difficult to monitor the impact of policy and spending decisions on performance.” This is common, with initiatives launched under a blaze of publicity, only to quietly be lost as ministers move on to the next shiny announcement. I highlighted some of this in my recent report on Fair Work, and the Scottish Business Pledge is another good example of this process.

And before anyone tells me that the solution is private sector expertise. Let us remember that many of these projects involved private sector management consultants and big accountancy firms. Elon Musk has lost $41billion in just the last two weeks!

If we want to get serious about public service reform, let’s not forget that the template was set down by the Christie Commission 12 years ago. I was an expert advisor to that Commission, which showed how Scotland's public services require comprehensive reform by empowering communities, integrating service provision, preventing adverse social outcomes and becoming more efficient. The analysis in the report turned out to be pretty accurate. Sadly, too few of the recommendations have been implemented. 

Five years after Christie, I wrote a paper for the Reid Foundation on public service reform. This built on the Christie principles with a call to build integrated public services around recognisable communities, based on the principle of subsidiarity with service delivery at the lowest practical level. Proposals like shared services, the National Care Service and others show that the cult of centralisation still pervades government thinking. Preventative spending that could cut the demand costs on public services by up to 40% remains largely ignored. That report and Christie highlighted the importance of proper workforce planning and a staffing framework. This is a point again highlighted recently by Audit Scotland. 

Sadly, time and time again, these fundamental lessons are not learned. Public service reform is wheeled out as a solution during a financial crisis, just when the necessary investment is unavailable. There are only three years to go before I write my regular five-year blog on implementing the Christie Commission report. I suspect cut and paste will do the job yet again!

Christie Commission - Ten Years On.

Next week is the tenth anniversary of the report of the Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services, known as the Christie Commission. I spent six months working as an expert advisor to the Commission. Sadly, while the principles of the Christie Commission are widely quoted, the delivery has been patchy at best.

 The Commission’s key conclusions were that Scotland’s public services require comprehensive reform by empowering communities, integrating service provision, preventing negative social outcomes and becoming more efficient. 

 

At the time, the Commission's public finance predictions were regarded as pretty grim. However, due to the political choices by the UK Government, which we now call austerity, the cuts were even more severe in practice. The long-term trends around the demand for public services and the impact of demographic change have proved all too accurate. Equally important to the Commission was growing inequality between the top and the bottom 20% in income, employment, and health outcomes. The consequences of disadvantage impose financial costs on public services, estimated at 40%+ of local public service spending. They also recognised the crucial contribution public services made to the Scottish economy and tackled the myth that public services are a drag on economic progress. Sadly forgotten during austerity with consequential damage to the Scottish economy.

 

The Commission identified problems with public service delivery, including fragmented authority and operational duplication, coupled with a top-down approach that designs services for individuals rather than with them. The recommended solutions focused on allowing services and communities to work together to decide what needs to be done, making the best use of all the resources available - taking an integrated long term, preventative approach. Staff should be empowered by leaders to actively seek innovative solutions with a strengthened public service ethos and common training for all staff based on enabling and empowering the lives of people and communities.

 

Ten years on, public service challenges look pretty similar, with the obvious addition of pandemic recovery following on from austerity economics, which created the longest recovery from recession on record. Scotland’s deep-seated inequalities remain largely untouched, and child poverty has increased. Demographic change has only partially been alleviated by increased migration, even that is under threat from Brexit and UK Government immigration policies. Austerity has savagely reduced the public service workforce, particularly in local government, forcing staff to abandon the critical Christie approach of prevention and revert to the statutory minimum at best.  

 

Integration has been limited, even in the vital area of social care. The idea that all public service organisations operating in a local authority area should view themselves as part of a common framework hasn’t happened. The silos that Christie sought to bring down are very much in place. Instead of a bottom-up approach based on empowerment, we have seen the centralisation of services. 

 

Five years after Christie, I wrote a paper for the Reid Foundation on public service reform. This built on the Christie principles with a call to build integrated public services around recognisable communities, based on the principle of subsidiarity with service delivery at the lowest practical level. I argued that the role of the central government should be to set the strategic direction based on outcomes – rather than trying to direct services from Edinburgh. Government should agree on frameworks that allow the local to focus on what matters. This should include a public sector ethos and fair work principles embodied in a national workforce framework. The single public service worker could minimise organisational and professional barriers and provide confidence for staff to engage in service redesign. 

 

As we look to build back better after the pandemic, the principles of integration, prevention empowerment and subsidiarity look as relevant as ever. The question as ever is the political will to make the necessary changes. I hope I won’t be writing a similar blog in 2031, but I wouldn't bet on it! 

Building Stronger Communities

The COVID-19 Pandemic has highlighted the importance of strong communities, supporting and looking out for each other. However, strong communities do not happen by accident; they need to be nurtured and supported. In a paper published today by the Reid Foundation, I set out nine ways we can build stronger communities through a comprehensive programme of action.

Austerity has undermined many of the local institutions that bind our communities together. Cuts to our libraries, community learning, youth work, day centres and grants to voluntary organisations have all contributed to a weakening of local communities. These cuts impact adversely and more acutely on the most disadvantaged individuals, communities and groups.

That is why social infrastructure is vitally important to strong communities. Social infrastructure relates to the physical conditions that determine whether personal relationships can flourish. When social infrastructure is robust, it fosters contact, mutual support, and collaboration among friends and neighbours. When degraded, it inhibits social activity, leaving families and individuals to fend for themselves. The paper looks at a wide range of initiatives that can strengthen social infrastructure including, good housing, libraries, leisure facilities, voluntary organisations, community ownership and the role of planning. Social media can be part of social infrastructure but it depends on connectivity which can be limited and unequal in many communities.

A strong local economy is an important element of strong communities. Scotland’s high streets and town centres were struggling even before the pandemic with five stores a week closing. We need to rethink our town centres as places where people live and work, not just shop, although that will remain important. Community Wealth Building should be at the core of the measures needed to rebuild local economies, based on wellbeing and inclusion.

Stronger communities also have to be sustainable communities, based on more local (particularly food) production, community energy, developing a sharing economy, better public transport and support for active travel. Place also impacts on health and wellbeing and contributes to creating or reducing inequalities. Sufficient social infrastructure helps tackle isolation and improves physical and mental health. This includes how we design communities and create integrated local health and care services.

Providing better services is not enough to create stronger communities - citizens also have to be actively engaged. So, local democracy should sit alongside measures to decentralise powers and democratise the economy. A fairer Scotland where we care about each other, where people can pool their resources, demand accountability, build institutions and influence the decisions that affect them. This must include the decentralisation of power with national government to focus on setting frameworks, leaving the delivery of services to local democratic control. Local integrated services should be based around community hubs in recognisable communities of place. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of local services and the workers who deliver them - we should ‘Build Back Better’ based on the principle of subsidiarity.

It isn’t that nothing has been done about these issues in Scotland. There are many good initiatives highlighted in the paper that individually address many of the key issues. The problem is that many are small scale and process-oriented. What we need is a real focus on communities as the building block of society and a comprehensive programme of integrated support.

The case for Universal Basic Services

If the current crisis teaches us anything, it has to be the importance of a genuine safety net for everyone in our society and the weakness of the global economic system. COVID-19 has brutally exposed the failings of capitalism and the failure to maintain effective public services.

Now that a crisis threatens to wreck the livelihoods of those normally comfortable under capitalism, there are pleas for increased state support that were previously confined to the left. Robert Peston, writing in The Spectator of all journals, quotes a Tory minister saying; “We’ll find ourselves implementing most of Jeremy Corbyn’s programme.”

The crisis should be an opportunity to rethink our approach. Instead of a series of ad-hoc measures and bailouts without conditions, we should recognise the value of systems that provide the essentials for everyone.

For example, last December many commentators regarded Labour’s plan for a British Broadband Service as unrealistic. Today, universal, free, full-fibre broadband is an essential service for almost everyone who is trying to minimise face to face contact. Some of the opposition came from the same people who would have opposed free education or universal access to clean water in the 19^th century.  

The crisis has highlighted the case for Universal Basic Income. While there are sceptics (including me) over this as a long-term plan, there is a strong temporary case, which could add to our understanding of how it might work in the longer term. It should at least get the DWP and HMRC to cooperate with the planned Scottish pilots.

Ed Miliband makes a good case for turning statutory sick pay into employment retention pay, available to all those workers whose businesses have had to cease or reduce activity due to the crisis. If Denmark can pay up to a 75% cap – so can we.

Another idea is Universal Basic Services (UBS). Anna Coote and Andrew Percy make a case for expanding the principle of collective universal service provision in their new book. The goal as they put it is; “Acting together to help each other, and ourselves, so that everyone has access to three things that are fundamental to a successful, peaceful, functioning democracy: security, opportunity and participation.”

 Central to their case is that we must improve the quality of existing services and reach into new areas such as care, housing, transport and digital access. This is the collective ideal, which the current crisis is bringing out in many communities. The politics of individual choice and market competition leads to the actions of some supermarket customers and the spivs in private healthcare selling testing kits for just short of £300.

This doesn’t mean just using existing service delivery models - services need to be genuinely participative. This can be linked to measures that provide meaningful engagement with wider forms of democracy.

The authors take us through the benefits of UBS, concisely outlining and referencing the evidence. This is not an academic tome, it is very readable while pointing to further reading. They set out how UBS could be rolled out and address the challenges and likely responses. They cost the additional expenditure required for the services proposed at around 4.3% of GDP for a typical OECD country, less than 15% of total government spending. And that doesn’t take account of the savings brought about by economies of scale and a healthier population.

As the post-war rebuilding, 2008 financial crisis, and now COVID-19 shows, when governments decide to increase spending, it is more a matter of political choice than applying rules of contemporary economics. 

While it is right that we focus on the measures necessary to tackle the current crisis, we should also learn the lessons. There will be those on the far-right who will exploit the crisis with disinformation, conspiracies and scapegoating. We need to develop new, sustainable solutions based on social justice. A starting point is ensuring everybody has access to collective services that are sufficient to meet their needs. 

Plunder of the Commons

Public wealth takes precedence over private riches. This is a policy prescription from what became known as the Lauderdale paradox. The Earl of Lauderdale in 1804 argued that there was an inverse correlation between public wealth and private riches such that an increase in the latter often served to diminish the former.

This is one of many classical ideas that underpin a new book by Guy Standing, 'Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth'. While most people are familiar with Magna Carta, there was a second document, scarcely known today, but at the time of its sealing was regarded as equally fundamental. This was the Charter of the Forest, which was about the rights of commoners to use and manage common resources. The Charter was also among the first environmental law statues as it placed implicit limits on the exploitation of natural resources.

Standing takes the principles of this Charter and looks at how they have been abused over the years, and then applies them in a modern context. He starts with how common land has been captured by private interests from the enclosures to the Highland clearances and modern-day encroachments - leaving most land in the hands of the very few, not the many. Common land today makes up only 7% of Scotland and 5% of the UK as a whole. The tenth Duke of Buccleuch is Britain's largest private landowner. As the descendant of an illegitimate son of Charles II, he inherited 277,000 acres, for which he did not do a day's work.

Land ownership continues to be concentrated in a few hands. For example, over 33,000 small-to-medium-sized farms have closed down since the mid-2000s. Forests, public parks, National Parks and even village greens have been whittled away into private ownership. This has a wider impact. For example, parks save the NHS £113 million a year as a result of fewer visits to the doctor. They also reduce heat in built-up areas and help manage run-off from heavy storms.

The book gives many other examples of how 'The Natural Commons' have been destroyed or privatised. Urban trees, water, seashores, air, sky, wind, and the minerals beneath our feet. Fracking without the landowner's permission is a recent example. Put simply; privatisation has paved the way for a pervasive colonisation of what had been commons.

Standing takes a similar approach to other, less obvious 'commons'. These include the 'social commons', public services that are provided outwith the private market and have been built up over generations. The 'civil commons' shows how access to justice (charges, legal aid, etc.) has been whittled away, and even criminal justice has been privatised. 

The arts, sport, the mass media, public libraries, art galleries, museums, concert halls and public places for performances are all part of our 'cultural commons'. He shows how the depletion of the cultural commons in the twenty-first century has been extensive and devastating, accelerated by the prolonged period of austerity. Concerns over the use of big data are covered in his' knowledge commons'. He argues that everyone should have access to adequate information and shows how corporate interests have captured information through enclosure, commodification, privatisation and ideological capture.

What I like about this book is that while providing excellent analysis, it also provides solutions - 44 of them. The final chapters offer a modern Charter of the Commons, to promote an ecologically sustainable society in which security, freedom and equality can flourish. There are too many to list in a blog post. However, a key recommendation is the establishment of a Commons Fund, sourced by levies on the commercial use or exploitation of the commons. These levies would also give all citizens a sense of collective ownership, even if some cost them personally.

Private wealth should be the starting point for the fund as it has increased at the expense of public wealth. Only 4% of tax revenues in the UK come from wealth. Standing proposes a progressive tax on inherited wealth or a general wealth tax, which already exists in a number of countries. Other sources of income include a Land Value Tax, Carbon Levy, Frequent Flyer Levy, Cruise Liner Levy, water use and others. These all have the advantage of encouraging less environmentally damaging activity. 

A Digital Data Levy addresses the use of our personal data by companies that are adept at tax avoidance, putting little back into our economy and public services. A similar approach is suggested to intellectual property rights, including an end to subsidies for Patents.

A number of us are sceptical that Basic Income will work without it being funded at a meaningful level. Standing argues that the Commons Fund could be one route to such a Basic Income. He also argues that a Basic Income also comes with an obligation to be an active citizen.

Overall, this is a very welcome, and concise, contribution to the debate about ownership, public services and inequality. I'll finish with this paragraph from the concluding chapter:

"The commons are our collective heritage. They cannot be alienated legitimately unless we, as citizens, decide that is what we wish, recognising that we are custodians for future generations as well as ours. Privatising and commercialising the commons, and most particularly colonising them, amounts to theft. It is a form of corruption intended to generate rental income for a few, from newly created 'property rights'. And it is regressive. The loss of the commons most affects those who rely on it the most."

The Common Good

Austerity has undermined many of the local institutions that bind our communities together. Cuts to our libraries, community learning, youth work, day centres and grants to voluntary organisations have all contributed to a sense of isolation.

While action on individual social isolation is essential, we also need to think about the role of social infrastructure. This relates to the physical conditions that determine whether personal relationships can flourish. When social infrastructure is robust, it fosters contact, mutual support, and collaboration among friends and neighbours. When degraded, it inhibits social activity, leaving families and individuals to fend for themselves.

I was brought back to this concept by reading Eric Klinenberg’s book ‘Palaces for the People: How to Build a More Equal and United Society’. He looked at two districts in Chicago after the 1995 heatwave. They had similar socio-economic characteristics, but one district had a much higher death rate. The difference wasn't cultural or about how much people cared about each other – it was that poor social infrastructure discouraged interaction and impeded mutual support.

Libraries are the best example of Klinenberg’s ‘Palaces for the People’. They are accessible and organised by professional staff that uphold a principled commitment to openness and inclusivity. A café might be, but it depends on the degree of openness, cost etc. Similarly, an early years centre where parents meet up at the same time is social infrastructure, but not a childcare centre in a commercial area where parents pop in and out to match their working hours.

Some might argue that this is less important in the internet age. Klinenberg argues that communication technologies work best when they direct us to physical spaces that everyone can access. Ironically, the sort of areas that the tech giants create in their own workplaces. The excesses of internet culture and the ‘echo chamber' patterns of use, add to the problem. It feeds what social scientists call ‘bonding social capital’, but starves us of the ‘bridging social capital’ we need to live together.

Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of Facebook as social infrastructure is flimsy because it cannot give us what we get from churches, unions, sports clubs and the welfare state. The primary aim is to keep us glued to the screens.

Safe, green spaces are another essential part of social infrastructure. This includes parks and gardens, but also in the design of housing developments. Studies show that the greener the immediate surroundings of a building, the lower the rate of crime. Although this only works when they are well maintained and so used by residents, creating passive surveillance and feelings of greater ownership and control.

Social infrastructure is also essential for health – the more physical environmental deprivation, the worse the community’s health. For example, with the opioid crisis in the US and rising levels of poor mental health in the UK, we overlook the importance of social cohesion and social support. A 2017 Harvard study, by Michael Zoorob, shows that communities with strong social capital were more likely to be insulated from the opioid crisis. Other studies point to the value of community gardens or allotments to us. Chicago has spent $2.5m on its inspirational 21,000 square-foot City Hall roof garden. In Singapore, the open spaces associated with housing projects are used for exercise, meetings, affordable dining and markets.

Public sports and leisure facilities have been squeezed due to austerity cuts. In Iceland, they have free swimming pools or ‘hot pots’ that are used by people from all walks of life – one per 2,750 residents. Mind you, the rule that everyone must strip naked and wash off in a public area before entering the tubs, might be a reform too far for Scotland! 

Organised sports can build similar social interaction. In the UK, 80% of people who play organised sport have friends in the organisation, a much higher rate than for other organisations. Along with people who regularly attend church, they are more likely to volunteer in other civic projects.

In Scotland, we have a historical manifestation of social infrastructure in our local Common Good funds. A 2014 Scottish Government report identified more than £300m in these funds covering moveable and heritable property. These were often donated by landowners when they sold development land for towns. Several modern day tech entrepreneurs invest some of their gains into good projects, as did old ‘robber barons' like Andrew Carnegie. However, none of this is at the scale necessary to create the social infrastructure we need.  

Another feature of our crumbling social infrastructure is the decline of the high street in most of our towns. If you listen to some voices, all that is required is a cut in business rates. What we actually need is to rebuild them as social infrastructure. Doncaster is one town that is fighting back, with the opening of a new cultural and learning centre, and retail shops that offer something different. Others talk about replacing the acquisition of goods and services on the high street with local experiences. 

Community Hubs that bring together public services are another idea that could contribute to the revitalisation of our high streets. I discuss this in more detail in my Jimmy Reid Foundation paper on public service reform. 

George Monbiot highlights projects in Barking and Dagenham, including ‘maker spaces’ equipped with laser cutters and other technology. Places where people meet, discuss ideas and start projects. Turning old warehouses and churches into community facilities where people can start collaborative businesses and welcome new arrivals to the area. As George says, “Perhaps it’s not the whole answer to our many troubles. But it looks to me like a bright light in a darkening world.” 

Since the 1980s, anti-tax ideology has whittled down the public funds we need to build and maintain critical infrastructures - austerity has been the last straw. As we replace crumbling physical infrastructure, we should also consider how it might contribute towards strengthening our social infrastructure. A modern version of the Common Good.

Democracy matters - The Local Governance Review

Modern Scotland needs a major devolution of power, placing responsibilities and resources with citizens and communities. This means strengthening democracy through the ballot box and by giving people an active role in decision making.

In December 2017, the Scottish Government and COSLA jointly launched a Local Governance Review, which aims to make sure local communities have more say about how public services in their area are run. Last month, the Scottish Government published a suite of materials to support a highly inclusive conversation about community decision-making.

The Review brings a wide range of Scotland's public services into scope, not simply limited to local government. The first stage consultation will run until November and will focus on local engagement - how local decisions could be made more effectively. The second stage, which will have a degree of overlap, will look at how decisions are made at council level or regionally. This will bring into focus the complex structure of public service delivery in Scotland. Legislation is pencilled in for 2020 to implement any changes, although where there is local consensus change could be fast tracked under existing powers.

The commissioning partners have agreed some guiding principles and a process, but they do not, at present, share a common direction of travel for reform. The Scottish Government has been centralising services, either on a regional or national basis, together will strengthened powers of direction from the centre. Albeit with a narrative around local voice. COSLA on the other hand wants to see devolution extend further than the Scottish Parliament, down to councils and communities. Brexit is another opportunity to extend devolution locally.

The starting point for any review of local governance are the Christie Commission principles, which almost everyone remains committed to, even if the application has been a patchy in practice. The ink was barely dry on the report before services were centralised, but it sets out the case for local engagement very clearly.

There is also a growing civil society movement that makes the case for local decision making and rejects a 'one size fits all' approach to local governance. The 'Our Democracy' initiative has been holding a range of local meetings to develop some ideas and they are bringing this together at a national conference this month.

There are no shortage of ideas developed by think tanks with a good track record of supporting local governance. The IPPR, Carnegie Trust, Fabian Society, LGIU and others, have all made solid contributions to this debate. Service design could be done with citizens and front line staff adopting ideas from Systems Thinking, The Enabling State, Participatory Budgeting and Co-operative councils.There are some common themes, illustrated by practical case studies, in these reports. In short, local is best.

COSLA's Local Democracy Commission has a good analysis of why over centralisation doesn't work. They also floated some quite radical ideas around the structure of public services, pointing to the already highly centralised structure of local government in Scotland. We have fewer councils and councillors than any European country. There may well be a case for regionalisation of some services, but the building lock of local democracy should be smaller, not ever larger councils.

Unsurprisingly, I would also point to my own contribution to the debate in my 2017 Reid Foundation paper 'Public Service Reform in Scotland'. I argue that public services should be built from the bottom up based on nine principles that reform proposals should be tested against. Democratic accountability, subsidiarity, transparency, equality, effectiveness, fair work, integration, outcomes and a public sector ethos. I have recently developed some of these ideas in a new Reid Foundation paper on municipal socialism.

The latest Scottish Social Attitudes Survey confirms that there is support for greater engagement. Work done with UNISON members confirms this, although there is also some cynicism that this might be just another government consultation, or a means of papering over the cracks caused by austerity. People will only give up their valuable time for engagement if they believe it will make a difference.

The voice of staff in service design was highlighted by the Christie Commission. There has been limited progress in achieving this, although staff governance initiatives in NHS Scotland and elsewhere is a step forward. I was at a meeting in Edinburgh today when the Cabinet Secretary and the President of COSLA both confirmed that staff voice was 'crucial' to the review.

So, the review is an opportunity to contribute to the debate. It couldn't be simpler to post an idea or respond to the simple open questions in the consultation paper.

As Richard Daggers put it in his 1997 book, "The virtuous citizen must be free, but not simply free to go his or her own way. Instead the citizen is free when he or she participates in the government of his or her community". We should take the opportunity of this review to make this a reality.

Municipal socialism for modern Scotland

Municipal socialism is the basis for delivering a wide range of local services in local government across the world.

Today, I was in the Scottish Parliament introducing my latest paper for the Jimmy Reid Foundation 'Municipal Socialism for a Modern Scotland'. I am grateful to Scottish Labour Party Leader, Richard Leonard MSP, for his introduction.

The paper sets out the historical context, which runs from the 19th century Liberals who addressed the appalling conditions in our cities by introducing municipal water, gas and other utilities. Keir Hardie devoted a chapter to municipal socialism in his book 'From Serfdom to Socialism'. The cause was taken up in the USA by the 'sewer socialists' whose efforts can be seen even today in the wide range of public services delivered by public authorities in the USA.

Scottish Local Government today has taken the brunt of austerity and services have been centralised. 

The case for municipal socialism is based on a very different approach. It recognises the benefits of collective provision, not just because it is a more effective way of delivering services, or even for the revenues it would generate, but as a key element of a strategy to reduce inequality - Scotland's main 21st century challenge.

The paper outlines eleven services that would benefit from municipal socialism. It is not an exhaustive list, but it shows the range of opportunities available to councils that are willing to grasp the challenge. 

Some are familiar services like housing, social care and early years provision. Others like energy, transport, broadband and water are commonly delivered by local government across the world, but rarely in Scotland. The final group of services are aimed at strengthening the local economy; including banking, IT, new forms of public finance and supporting the foundational economy.

Just transferring or creating new services to a weak local state is not enough. It requires new forms of participative democracy that fully engage citizens in local government. 

Taking this agenda forward requires bold leadership from councils. I have argued elsewhere that local government in Scotland must move away from being the passive administrators of austerity, to become the political leadership of their communities. I hope this paper provides a template for radical councils to grasp the opportunities that municipal socialism offers.