16th November 2026
Councils across Scotland are under considerable financial pressure. Rising wages, energy bills, borrowing costs and increasing demand for essential services are leaving local authorities searching for ways to balance their budgets. Their arm's-length organisations and publicly supported charities face similar challenges.
It is understandable that these organisations are looking for additional sources of income. However, a question is emerging about how far this should go. Are organisations increasingly turning information, newsletters and activities that were once freely available into subscription services?
There is an important distinction between charging for a service that costs money to provide and asking people to pay a subscription to receive information about services and activities that are already supported by public funding.
That distinction deserves closer examination.
Charging for services is not the same as charging for information
There is nothing inherently wrong with councils and their associated organisations charging for services.
Swimming pools, gyms, community halls and leisure facilities all have operating costs. Staff have to be employed, buildings maintained, heating and electricity paid for, and equipment replaced. Charging people to use these facilities is a reasonable way of contributing towards those expenses.
Similarly, there can be good reasons to charge for special exhibitions, organised courses, guided tours, room hire and other activities requiring additional resources.
Waste collection, bulky rubbish removal and other discretionary services can also attract charges, although the level of those charges and their effect on households are legitimate subjects for debate.
These are examples of people paying towards something they actually use or receive.
Subscriptions for information are rather different.
When an organisation asks people to pay regularly to receive newsletters, email updates, publications or information about its activities, it is effectively placing a price on access to information.
That raises a different question. Should information about activities and services provided by publicly funded organisations really be restricted to those willing to pay a subscription?
The growth of subscription schemes
There are many organisations that now use membership and subscription arrangements to generate additional income.
Some are entirely commercial and there is no particular reason why they should provide their publications or information free of charge.
However, the position is less straightforward when an organisation receives substantial public funding or operates on behalf of a local authority.
Councils, leisure trusts, museums, heritage organisations and other publicly supported bodies already receive money from taxpayers, either directly or through grants and service agreements.
They may also have charitable status and rely on donations and voluntary contributions.
There is nothing wrong with encouraging people to support their work through voluntary donations or additional memberships. But there should be a clear distinction between asking for extra support and charging people for information about services that public money is already helping to provide.
Basic information about opening times, local activities, community facilities, environmental projects and public services should normally remain freely accessible.
A paid publication offering additional specialist material is a different proposition.
Does the administration cost more than it raises?
There is another issue that deserves greater attention.
Every subscription scheme requires administration. Someone has to prepare the material, promote the service, manage mailing lists, process payments, deal with renewals and answer enquiries.
There may also be software costs, payment processing fees and time spent encouraging people to subscribe.
Suppose an organisation hopes to raise £5,000 annually through a new subscription scheme. That might initially look like a useful contribution towards its budget.
But how much staff time will be required to generate that income?
If several employees spend time preparing marketing material, managing payments and dealing with subscribers, the actual financial benefit could be considerably smaller.
There is also an opportunity cost. Those employees could potentially spend their time delivering services, supporting the public or improving the organisation's main activities.
Raising money is not necessarily the same as making a saving.
Organisations should therefore calculate the net income from subscription schemes after administration and other costs have been deducted, rather than simply announcing how much they hope to collect.
The growing reliance on charges
This is not simply a theoretical concern.
Audit Scotland's reporting on local government finances and culture and leisure services has highlighted the increasing importance of income from user charges.
Its October 2025 analysis found that income from charges for council culture and leisure services increased by 26.9% in real terms between 2018/19 and 2023/24, reaching £117.6 million.
Its June 2026 budget bulletin also highlighted the growing reliance of Scottish councils on fees and charges, with councils expecting to collect around £1.2 billion from these sources in 2026/27.
These figures relate to fees and charges for services, not subscriptions for newsletters or information. Nevertheless, they demonstrate the wider financial pressure on councils and their increasing reliance on income generated directly from users.
The challenge is to ensure that the search for additional income does not lead to every aspect of public provision becoming another opportunity to collect money.
The danger of excluding people
There is a social consequence too.
Subscriptions may seem relatively inexpensive to someone with a comfortable income, but the cumulative effect of numerous small charges can become significant.
Households already face payments for leisure facilities, children's activities, community events and other services. Adding subscriptions for information and updates can create another barrier.
People on limited incomes may simply decide that some activities or sources of information are no longer affordable.
That would be particularly unfortunate when publicly supported organisations are supposed to encourage participation, improve access to culture and provide information for their communities.
Basic public information should not become the preserve of those who can afford another monthly or annual payment.
What should organisations be asking themselves?
Before introducing another subscription scheme, councils and their arm's-length organisations should be able to answer some straightforward questions.
How much additional income is realistically expected?
What will it cost in staff time and administration to collect that money?
How much will remain after all the costs have been deducted?
Is the subscription paying for genuinely additional material or services, or is it charging people for information that should already be freely available?
Could the same money be raised more efficiently through voluntary donations, sponsorship or an existing funding arrangement?
There should also be transparency about how subscription income is used and whether it actually improves the service.
These are reasonable questions for taxpayers, service users and charity supporters to ask.
A question of priorities
Councils and publicly supported organisations are facing difficult financial circumstances. Nobody should pretend that every service can continue unchanged without additional money.
Charging people to use facilities or participate in activities can be entirely reasonable, provided the charges are fair and do not exclude those who need the services most.
But subscriptions for information deserve a different test.
There is a risk that organisations become so preoccupied with generating income that they spend increasing amounts of time administering subscriptions, memberships and payment schemes rather than concentrating on their original purpose.
The public should be entitled to expect that basic information about publicly supported services remains accessible without another payment barrier.
Perhaps the most important question is not how much an organisation can raise through another subscription scheme, but whether the money raised justifies the effort involved and whether charging for that information is appropriate in the first place.
When public bodies and publicly supported organisations start behaving increasingly like commercial businesses, it is reasonable to ask where the boundary should be.
Generating additional income may be necessary, but it should not become an end in itself. The priority must remain delivering the services and information that these organisations were established to provide.