Local government service provision: Audit Scotland report must act as wake-up call to challenges ahead

Audit Scotland has published an overview of local government and service provision in Scotland.

Derek Brownlee MSP, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Finance & Sustainable Growth, said:

"We know that the result of Labour's debt legacy will be for local authorities to find new ways of delivering vital public services.

"We need to make savings whilst trying to maintain the same quality of service, which means changing the way things are done. So the report is correct to identify that councils must look at working with other parts of the public sector, the private sector and voluntary sector to deliver these services [see note 1].

"The report also identifies the significant cost of absence rates as a problem [see note 2] – Scottish Conservatives have a three point plan to reduce absenteeism in the public sector [see note 3]. A reduction of just one day would save on average £69million a year in the public sector across Scotland.

"There is little evidence either Scottish Labour or the SNP Government will work together with local authorities and take the difficult decisions to get us back on track. Hopefully this report will act as another wake-up call to them."

1) Page 6, Para 10 of the report

2) Page 14, Para 45 of the report

3) Our plan would firstly involve the Scottish Government placing a new, statutory obligation on all devolved public bodies to provide comparable data on absences, updated quarterly and published online.

Secondly, we have proposed a new target for sickness absence at the lower end of the private sector average and the best performing public sector equivalent.

Finally, there must be a new system of absence management that helps people get back to work as quickly as possible. It works by asking employees to call a special helpline staffed by health workers, rather than calling their boss. Trials of this scheme have shown remarkable results.

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