Local Services

That the Parliament is concerned by the apparently endless desire on the part of centralising national politicians to attempt to take over control of local services, witnessed by proposals on police, fire and social work; opposes the flawed proposals for a single police force, under which, for example, local control of policing will be removed from the Northern and Grampian police force areas; does not support centralisation by government assertion, where no robust costs of change are produced; believes that a single one-size-fits-all approach to social work will waste money by destroying those successful local initiatives that are already in place, and believes that the people of Scotland will be better served by a new approach from government that trusts local people to make good decisions for their areas and equips local government with the powers, levers and authority to drive innovation and improvement in local services.