The solution to save Scottish islands council from widespread cuts to fill £20m funding black hole

The Western Isles’ chief executive has claimed combining the council, health board and housing association could be the answer to the location’s financial challenges.

Over the past 12 years, the Western Isles has lost 14 per cent in real-terms revenue, with the local authority forced to cut around 400 members of staff to try and make savings.

Earlier this week it emerged £20 million needed to be found to help maintain public services in the Western Isles.

Stornoway.

But Malcolm Burr, chief executive of Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council), said he believed he had a solution to the problem - creating a single joint authority.

The proposal would combine the council, NHS Western Isles, Hebridean Housing Partnership and others into one body.

Mr Burr said: “The council has been committed to a single authority model for years.

“This follows the Islands Act and the Community Empowerment Act - this is the next step in our view for the correct way of delivering public services in the Western Isles in terms of empowerment, democratic accountability and coherent service planning.

“It’s not just the money. But with deficits growing, funding shrinking, the money side of it has to be more important.

“Although it wasn’t set up around finance, I think the single authority model would bring so many savings, and we need to plough the money that’s saved back into frontline services.”

The idea of a single joint authority was first mooted by the council back in 2018, but was sidelined as a proposal during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Burr said the council was having to dip into its financial reserves to make ends meet as it grapples with financial challenges. Love politics? Then sign up for The Steamie daily newsletter

He said: “Scottish Parliament figures show over the last 12 years the Western Isles has lost 14 per cent in real-terms revenue.

“We are managing that through our reserves and not filling posts to reduce the headcount of the council - we have lost 262 full-time equivalent posts, which is about 400 people.

“The consequences are being felt in the services we provide and we can only use our reserves once.

“If you want to provide services, you need people to provide them.”

Just after Finance Secretary Shona Robison announced the 2024/25 Scottish Budget in January, Councillor Paul Steele warned there was “effectively no money” to improve frontline services in the Western Isles.

At the time he criticised the finance secretary’s decision to remove some ring fenced funding, saying “for the people of the Western Isles, public services are therefore unlikely to improve”.

He said: “We can’t do this forever. That is the common message across all local governments, it is just particularly acute here because of what we’ve already lost.”

Scotland’s councils are facing an overall budget gap of £585 million this financial year, which could rise to £780m by 2026/27. This year’s funding gap represents about 3.5 per cent of councils’ total revenue budget.

Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee said: “A single authority model for local decision-making is potentially ground-breaking reform, which can benefit the people of Western Isles. Ministers met with the council and health partners earlier this year in Stornoway, welcoming their commitment to jointly developing proposals.

“The Scottish Government has made available record funding of over £14 billion to local councils this year – a real-terms increase of 2.5 per cent compared with the previous year.”