Will local democracy remain in the bin regardless of the YES or NO outcome?

We've put this post to the top again - interesting comments coming in, including one from prominent local YES campaigner Cllr Colin MacAulay.

One of our correspondents tells us that they are not very impressed with the quality of the Independence debate so far at local and national level. They are particularly unimpressed by lack of a mention of what either outcome might mean for local democracy – something that has been in serious decline in recent years. To this observer this democratic deficit was illustrated again (albeit in a very small way) up at the Cawdor Community Council meeting last week. There was a call for a litter bin at the football pitch. There followed mention of erratic collections and how this service had declined. One of the councillors said to Highland Councillor Roddy Balfour that they would accept any sort of bin that they council would offer as long as somebody was going to empty it. Roddy replied: “That’s the trouble - getting someone out here to empty them.”

One of the Cawdor community councillors is already emptying the bin at the church themselves and was reluctant to accept responsibility for another. There was a suggestion that it could be tied in with the school bins but it was said: “getting rid of rubbish at Cawdor School is quite complicated and not an option.” As the Chair Tim Smith said emptying the bins was “the difficult part of the equation.” 

Now rewind Gurnites to the days of the Nairn District Council. Characters of the calibre of Chrissie Ellen would have simply gone to see the official responsible and it would have been sorted. In the past Councillors had the power and the influence to sort such small things without such ridiculous carry-ons. We have several officials in Inverness earning salaries well in excess of a £100,000 each yet there appears to be no one that could empty an extra litter bin. Maybe there simply is no money left, after all Highland Council is on schedule to notch up a billion pounds of debt in the near future. Maybe the labyrinth of administration is far too complex. It makes you wonder what is the point of a veteran, councillor with the experience of Roddy Balfour even going to meetings if he can’t even get someone to come and empty a bin. It’s hardly asking for a new footbridge across the River Nairn or something like that is it? 

So let’s look at this democratic deficit again. And for this we steal directly from a blog post by Green Activist Andy Wightman in which he details why he thinks the recent Commission for Strengthening Local Democracy’s report believes the Scottish Government’s Community Empowerment Bill will only tinker with the symptoms of the problem. Here are quotes he has lifted from the report: 

"The case for much stronger local democracy is founded on the simple premise that it is fundamentally better for decisions about these aspirations to be made by those that are most affected by them…

….after decades of power ebbing away, for many people it has become increasingly inconceivable to think that local communities could be in charge of their own affairs.

In the end, all of our thinking has come down to seven fundamental principles that we believe must underpin Scotland’s democratic future.

We have also concluded that the evolution of Scotland’s democratic system across the past 50 years has more or less undermined or inverted all these principles, albeit often with good intentions.

The principle of sovereignty has been so inverted that it is now routine in public policy to talk about governments and local governments “empowering” communities rather than the other way round. The principle of subsidiarity has been undermined by the progressive scaling up of local governance, and central control of local resources and functions. The transition from over 200 local councils in 1974 to only 32 “local” councils in 1996 is one of the most radical programmes of delocalisation that we can identify anywhere in the world. Moreover, Scotland’s local democratic structures can be changed at will by any national government with a majority. That the Scottish Parliament is in exactly the same position with respect to Westminster illustrates how “top down” the whole framework of democracy is."

Andy Wightman’s blog post "Time to rebuild Local Democracy" is here and the Commissions’ final report can be downloaded here. 

We have a long way to go in getting acceptable local accountability back and it would be healthy to hear more from YES or NO activists on why they believe their particular outcome would lead us to a better democratic deal for local communities – because there are people out there that believe that places like Nairn and Cawdor are stuffed whatever happens at the ballot box on September 18th if centralised administrations continue to cling on to their powerbases without devolution down to communities.

In a newly Independent Scotland would new political parties spring up to campaign on these issues or would allegiances be with the existing structures such as the one at Glenurquhart Road and their preservation? This observer feels personally that it would be easier to campaign for a better local deal in an Independent Scotland but there are some out there not so easily convinced of that. It is a shame that the subject doesn't feature more to the forefront of the debate.