22nd September 2026
The Scottish Government is proposing a major reshaping of local government, with fewer regional authorities and many more community-level bodies making decisions closer to where people live.
The language is about local democracy, stronger communities and bringing decisions closer to people.
But there is another phrase in the Government's proposal that deserves just as much attention: “maximise the efficient use of public spending.”
So is this really about giving power back to local communities, or is it also an attempt to reduce the cost of running Scotland's public services?
The answer appears to be both.
The Scottish Government has proposed replacing Scotland's present local government arrangements with between six and ten regional authorities, supported by between 120 and 160 community authorities.
The regional bodies would concentrate on strategic matters such as economic development, infrastructure and larger-scale services. Community authorities would deal with issues where decisions are considered better taken locally.
The Government says this would make some existing councils less remote while giving Scotland stronger strategic regions. Councillors would continue to be elected at existing ward level and would sit on both the regional and community authorities, meaning the Government says there would be no additional elections or another tier of politicians.
At first sight, there is quite a lot to like about the principle.
Highland Council, for example, covers a huge geographical area. Decisions affecting Wick or Thurso can be made many hours away in Inverness, even when the issues are highly local.
The Government's argument is that Scotland has some councils that are “too big to be local” while others may be “too small to be strategic”.
Its proposed answer is to have both levels.
But then comes the money
Buried among the language about empowerment is a much more financially focused argument.
The Government says the new arrangements should reduce “backroom duplication” and put more resources into delivering services to local people.
That is hardly surprising.
Scotland is facing substantial pressure on public finances, rising demand for health and social care and an ageing population.
The Scottish Spending Review published earlier this year makes the financial motivation particularly clear.
The Government has set an ambition to reduce annualised Scottish Government and public-body corporate costs by £1 billion over five years.
It has also identified £1.5 billion of cumulative savings over the Spending Review period through workforce savings, efficiencies in corporate functions and wider service reform.
The Government therefore has a very strong financial reason to examine whether Scotland's current public-sector structures are costing more than necessary.
And local government is a very large part of that public sector.
Could fewer councils save money?
Potentially, yes.
Having six to ten regional authorities instead of the present 32 councils could reduce the number of senior management structures, finance departments, HR functions, IT systems, procurement arrangements and other corporate services.
The Government's proposal explicitly talks about using common regional administrative and corporate structures to support both regional and community authorities.
That is where the potential savings could come from.
But there is an important catch.
Creating new organisations is not free.
There would be costs associated with reorganising staff, computer systems, buildings, contracts, branding, legal structures and administrative arrangements.
There could also be redundancy and pension costs.
And if community authorities are given genuine powers, they will require resources to exercise those powers.
So the crucial question is not simply whether the new structure looks more efficient on paper.
It is how much money will actually be saved after the cost of creating the new system has been taken into account?
The Government has not yet provided a figure.
Local decisions could cost more
There is another interesting possibility.
Giving communities greater control does not necessarily mean spending less.
In some cases it could mean spending more.
A community might decide that a library should remain open, that a local facility needs investment or that a particular service should be delivered differently.
Those decisions might be entirely reasonable, but they could increase rather than reduce expenditure.
Equally, a community might identify a cheaper way of delivering a service and save money.
That is why the Government's proposal talks about both local empowerment and efficiency.
The two objectives can sometimes reinforce each other, but they can also pull in opposite directions.
Highland could be particularly affected
For Highland, the proposal deserves close attention.
The Government has already acknowledged that Scotland's geography means a single model may not work everywhere.
The proposal specifically recognises the distinctive circumstances of island communities and says bespoke arrangements may be necessary.
But Highland is not an island authority.
A future regional authority covering a large part of the Highlands could still be geographically enormous.
There is therefore an obvious question for Caithness and Sutherland:
Will creating a larger strategic region make local government more local, or will the creation of community authorities simply try to compensate for a much larger regional administration?
That will depend entirely on what powers and budgets are actually transferred downwards.
The Government says there should be a statutory obligation on regional authorities to devolve appropriate functions to community authorities.
That is potentially important.
Without real powers and money, community authorities could become little more than another way of discussing local problems.
With meaningful budgets and decision-making powers, they could represent a genuine change in how Highland is governed.
The Government has not hidden the financial objective
It is worth being fair to ministers here.
The Scottish Government has not claimed that reform is purely about democracy.
Its own documents repeatedly connect public-service reform with financial sustainability.
The 2026 Spending Review describes reform as critical to meeting Scotland's “fiscal sustainability challenge” and says public bodies must identify opportunities to create efficiencies and simplify the public-sector landscape.
An earlier Scottish Government document was even more explicit, describing the approach as balancing short-term budget pressures and making savings with longer-term reform.
So it would be wrong to portray cost reduction as something that ministers are secretly trying to achieve.
It is clearly part of the programme.
The real question is whether better local government and cheaper government can be achieved at the same time.
What should people watch for?
The proposals are still a starting point for discussion rather than a finished blueprint.
The Government says it wants agreement on the broad direction before the end of 2026, with early decisions informing the next Scottish Budget.
The important details have yet to be settled.
How many regional authorities will there actually be?
What areas will they cover?
Which services will remain regional?
Which powers and budgets will be transferred to community authorities?
How much will the reorganisation cost?
How much is expected to be saved?
And, perhaps most importantly, will the savings come from eliminating bureaucracy or eventually from reducing frontline services and staffing?
Those questions will matter much more to most people than the architecture of the new system.
The idea of bringing decisions closer to people is attractive.
But local government reform should ultimately be judged by what happens to the services people use, the taxes they pay and the amount of public money required to provide those services.
There is nothing inherently contradictory about wanting government to be both more local and more efficient.
But neither should automatically be assumed to follow from the other.
The next stage of this debate should therefore be about the numbers as much as the structures.
If the Scottish Government believes that a new system can deliver better local decision-making and save significant amounts of money, people are entitled to ask a straightforward question:
How much will it save, where will the savings come from, and what will happen to the money?