Undermining Local Authorities

That the Parliament considers that introducing more powerful provosts, such asmayors in England, or similar, would be a major mistake and would underminelocal authorities; further considers that such provosts or mayors would be acentralising move, taking power away from local authorities when, it believes,the focus should be on trying to decentralise more powers towards them;commends the existing structures, such as the regional transport partnershipsand city regions, whereby local politicians of different political persuasionsand representing different geographical areas can, it believes, work togetherfor the good of their wider region; considers that, with a population of onlyaround 5.4 million, Scotland does not need yet another layer of government;believes that some politicians in Scotland want to copy everything that Englanddoes, despite the fact that England is much larger and faces differentchallenges; considers that smaller countries like Scotland can benefit fromsimpler structures, and should need fewer public bodies and less bureaucracy,and hopes that the idea of what it sees as centralising provosts or mayors willnot be taken seriously.