Council staff must have a meaningful say in the future of local services, COSLA has said, as it urged caution over the Scottish Government's plans to reform local government.
Following a meeting of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) on Friday, Cllr Shona Morrison said the proposals leave ‘more questions than answers’ and called for reforms to be based on sound evidence.
First Minister John Swinney has set out plans for more strategic regional models of local government, arguing some councils are ‘too small to be strategic and some are too big to be local'.
A three-month consultation will draw up a shared direction for reform by the end of the year. The overhaul forms part of the Programme for Government for the next five years in Scotland.
COSLA said any changes must be agreed with Government rather than imposed from the top down. It called on ministers to commit to implementing reforms only with the agreement of existing local authorities, ahead of next year's council elections.
