The Scottish Local Government Accounts Commission’s annual report has shown that public satisfaction for refuse collection has fallen by 2% in the last year.
However, 21 of 33 councils increased their recycling rates in the wake of “significant” central government funding cuts.
The Scottish Local Government’s Accounts Commission is the public spending watchdog for local government in Scotland, and aims to hold councils to account and help them improve.
Public satisfaction with ‘bin services’ has fallen by 2% in Scotland
Its report, published yesterday (05 April) outlined that in real terms, council revenue funding from the Scottish Government has fallen in real terms by 9.6% between 2010/11 and 2018/19, which presented “significant challenges” to councils.
Recycling
Twenty-one councils increased the amount of waste that was recycled. Of these, ten increased the cost of waste collection while eleven reduced their costs.
Stirling and Clackmannanshire councils both reduced their costs of waste collection by 25%, but increased their recycling rate by 0.9% and 8.4% respectively. On the other side, both South Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway councils increased costs by more than 10%, while also reporting reduced recycling rates, of 1.6% and 0.4% respectively.
Satisfaction
The report also highlighted customer satisfaction levels since 2010.
The Local Government Benchmarking Framework, which compiles the figures, mostly showed a decline in public satisfaction between 2010 and 2017. For refuse collection in particular, the customer satisfaction levels fell to 79%, from 81% in 2010. The largest reduction was for local schools, which fell from 83 to 73%.
In a poll by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2017, only 12% of respondents in Scotland agreed that their council had become more effective over the last five years.
Future
The report outlined that if current trends for spending on education and social care services continue, councils will have significantly less to spend on other services.
This modelling shows that councils would spend 80 per cent of budgets on education and social care by 2025/26, as a result of an ageing population. This would leave only 20% of budgets for all other council services such as road repairs, refuse collection and environmental health, 7% less than in 2011/12.
Reaction
The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) welcomed the report, which was released yesterday.
In a statement, COSLA said the report shows that despite a “substantial cut” in funding, councils continue to deliver essential services for their communities.
COSLA’s resources spokesperson, councillor Gail Macgregor said: “For years now, COSLA has strongly lobbied the Scottish Government about the growing pressure from an ageing population and how we address the serious demographic challenges together in partnership.
“The Commission rightly highlights that over and above budget cuts Councils are continually faced with uncertainty and an ever demanding policy landscape from Scottish Government.”
Ms Macgregor continued: “In addition as the report also recognises, councils have worked hard to deliver efficiency savings whilst tirelessly balancing local services but those choices are now becoming restrictive and the decisions being taken are much more about what services must and need to be delivered.”
Report
Local government in Scotland. Challenges and performance 2018
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
