Views
Retaining accountability at a local level - for the Inverness Courier
THE need to make savings and ensure taxpayers' money goes further these days demands very careful thinking about the future of our public services.
This is happening at all levels of government: UK, local and devolved.
Last week, we gained an insight into the thinking of the current Scottish government and it does not look good from a Highland perspective - nor indeed from the perspective of anyone who cares about increasing local control.
The proposal for a single police force for Scotland would mean the disappearance of the Northern Constabulary and its merger into one Scottish force. While the SNP government is "consulting", ministers have made clear that they are enthusiastic for this centralising proposal.
We should resist this. The Highlands benefit from having locally-accountable policing, with policies and priorities decided according to the needs of our area, not according to some central plan to satisfy government in Edinburgh.
The local force is held accountable by its board, which includes locally-elected councillors from our area. They in turn can be held to account locally for their decisions, good or bad. This is not the first time the SNP government has tried this sort of thing. We know that they wanted to abolish Highlands and Islands Enterprise and replace it with a single Scottish body, but could not get the support they needed in the Scottish Parliament. Instead they settled for slashing its budget - when economic times were still good - making it less able to make a difference when they turned bad.
In an area as large, diverse and distinct from the rest of Scotland and Britain, we should guard carefully the institutions we have that are able to deliver distinct responses for the Highlands and Islands. And the argument that centralisation is necessary to deliver savings is wrong: very often local control will deliver better value for money, while centralisation builds up unnecessary bureaucracy that distracts resources from the frontline.
Bodies like Northern Constabulary of course need to make savings, but these can be found without compromising local control or accountability.
Sharing back office services between public sector organisations can yield significant savings and joining up between different public sector organisations could also bring better partnership working.
Highland Council has a very effective partnership with Fujitsu that has made real savings in IT - others could follow suit. Greater local power - devolving more power to local authorities, communities and individuals - would actually help to get better results, for less money. The UK government is driving through a range of reforms designed to give local people more power, which will change the way services are run for the better, such as in the NHS.
So I hope that other political parties will reject the view that centralising services away from the Highlands is the right thing to do, and come up with alternative proposals based on greater localism within Scotland and additional control in the Highlands.
Tavish Scott has already made an important contribution with his idea of Local Development Banks. We don't need centralisation.
WELCOME, NICK
Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats and deputy prime minister, will be visiting the Highlands this week.
I am delighted to be welcoming him to this constituency, where he will hold an open meeting at which local people can come and ask him questions.
These events take place regularly in different parts of great Britain and I hope that local people take the chance to put their comments to him.
Having led the party into government for the first time in may generations, Nick has done a superb job as deputy prime minister.
The government is delivering major benefits to the Highlands and Islands - on broadband, fuel costs in the islands, green energy - as well as taking unavoidable but difficult decisions on the economy. So there will be a lot to talk about!
Posted on: 18/01/2011
