Building a Local Scotland. Scotland has practically the largest units of local government in the world.
An average Scottish local council has 175,000 people compared to an average EU local council of 10,000. Is small better when it comes to local government? … Small councils cooperating & sharing resources when that makes sense…. more people involved in running their own area? … with real power? and proper finance? Could we have a national conversation about devolving power to local communities?
There seems to be widespread consensus that something needs to be done about the over-centralisation of Scotland, but little agreement about what that should be. Now a group of individuals from a range of backgrounds – activists, academics, trade unionists and more – have set themselves the task of raising the profile of this democratic deficit and engaging the public and politicians in a discussion about how to address it by redrawing our local government map.
Indypodcasters have been presenting a series of podcasts on the topic of the kind of national conversation Scots are having and this seemed a perfect fit for that series so we went along to the launch event which was held in Edinburgh on 9th September 2024. This is our recording of the public launch event.
Panel presentations were:
- 00:59 Introduction by Joyce McMillan, Scotsman newspaper columnist and theatre critic
- 04:24 Esther Roberton, former co-ordinator of the Scottish Constitutional Convention
- 08:19 Dave Watson, Director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation
- 14:47 Willie Sullivan, Senior director for Campaigns, Electoral Reform Society Scotland
- 21:44 Ewan Aitken, Former Labour Councillor and COSLA spokesperson
- 29:43 Lesley Riddoch, Director of Nordic Horizons, filmmaker and award winning journalist
- 38:48 Q and A
- 01:10:49 Next steps
- You can find out more from their website Building a Local Scotland
- You can also sign the declaration calling for citizens’ assemblies to gather evidence and recommend solutions.
- Catch up with our National Conversation playlist
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