Time to empower local communities in everything from transport to taxation, says Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie
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The Scottish Greens have called for the complete overhaul of local government to give locals the power they need to “crack on and make their communities better places to live in”.
Co-leader Patrick Harvie made the policy announcement that wants communities empowered over “everything from the tax base to who runs the local buses” in Inverness last Friday morning.
Mr Harvie believes the council system has effectively turned local government into “big regional service delivery agencies” whose budgets and policies are decided by the central government.
“Scotland has this incredibly centralised system of local government. We call it local government but it is big regional service delivery agencies and for the most they get told what to do by central government and they get their budget set by central government.
“We want communities to be empowered to make their own decisions about their future, about what kind of developments they want, about where they want to see investment about new jobs and a whole host of other issues. About how they want to run public transport, in the public sector, publicly owned bus companies, publicly owned energy companies.
“You have fewer people involved in making decisions, you have got decisions being made over a bigger area so a one-size-fits-all approach.”
He believes councils are being driven by efficiency targets, which may mean the “right thing” in a particular area is not happen because local circumstances are not being considered.
“If your local bus company is a private profit-driven company that makes a decision that a route is not viable then there is nothing the community can do about it and they are left stranded without public transport,” he added.
“But if we do these things then local communities don’t need to wait for some central authority to make a decision for them, they will be able just to crack on and make their communities better places to live.”
