Strathclyde Regional Council, ashes to ashes

Strathclyde Regional Council - India Street HQ, 2018

I was walking to the Charing Cross station after spending some time with ex-work colleagues and veered off to see the site of my former offices in India Street where I had worked for 16 years for Strathclyde Regional Council. 

Strathclyde Regional Council was inaugurated in 1975 as the largest local authority in the UK serving a population of 2.5 million. It was formed following a Royal Commission of Local Government in Scotland, chaired by Lord Wheatley. Like any Royal Commission, the proposals had been meticulously researched with much evidence behind the proposals to create 9 regional councils, 53 district councils and 3 island councils to replace the 33 counties, 4 cities, 21 large burghs and hundreds of small burghs and landward districts that preceded them. The proposals had been subject to lengthy consultations that were transparent and generally accepted as a necessary reform. The existing muddle of councils with different sets of functions had failed to tackle the social and housing conditions, schools were understaffed in poorer areas and there was endemic corruption within some councils. 

In Strathclyde 103 councillors were elected in 1974 to serve on the council. The council was led by two outstanding councillors from the majority Labour Party: the Rev Geoff Shaw, a Church of Scotland minister who worked in the Gorbals, and Dick Stewart, an ex-miner from Harthill. They were chalk and cheese. The eloquent and erudite Geoff Shaw with his passion for social justice and the pragmatic and brutally principled Dick Stewart who was no orator but a disciplinarian equally determined to deliver social justice. 

They melded together a diverse group of councillors, not tolerating any form of corruption and providing a clear agenda for the 100,000 staff to follow. The west of Scotland was in a state of meltdown as mines closed, shipyards ran out of work, factories were closing and 60,000 people a year were leaving the region. The former Glasgow Corporation had engaged in a programme of the demolition of older tenemental properties to accommodate the building of urban motorways and the construction of huge council housing schemes lacking the range of facilities required by the residents. Jobs and people were moving to the New Towns of East Kilbride, Cumbernauld and Irvine. Stonehouse had been designated as the fourth new town in the region to continue this exodus. 

There seemed to be little recognition by the Scottish Office or by the existing councils that this was eroding the social and economic fabric of not only Glasow but also towns like Clydebank, Dumbarton, Paisley, Greenock, Motherwell, Hamilton, Airdrie, Coatbridge, and Kilmarnock. The West Central Scotland Plan had called for a radical shift in urban policy to regenerate these older urban centres along with Glasgow. This was not well received by the many in the business community who were enjoying the subsidies, low rentals and new infrastructure in the new towns. Nor did the majority of existing councils welcome the Plan; the exceptions being Clydebank, Greenock, Motherwell and Coatbridge, which were more positive about the need for a radical shift in policy to create opportunities for their citizens and reduce the loss of young people.

The Scottish Office had in a 1962 White Paper planned for rapid population and economic growth but the collapse of traditional industries meant that the opposite was happening. The outcome was social and economic turbulence in the region, which the 1971 census identified as containing the worst concentrations of urban deprivation in the UK. Strathclyde Regional Council recognised this and made its two overarching objectives the need to tackle multiple deprivation and economic development. 

These objectives were pursued with a missionary zeal that included recruitment of more teachers to eradicate part-time education in deprived areas, reallocation of staff to areas of greatest need, community engagement including the encouragement of house modernisation through the creation of 29 housing associations, support for threatened industries and investment in rail electrification and underground modernisation rather than highway construction. The Council also persuaded the Scottish Office to establish an economic and environmental agency, the Scottish Development Agency. Whilst this was generally a positive initiative, the agency was largely staffed by professionals transferred from the New Town corporations who were more focused on development than regeneration. They did not have the skills to address community engagement nor were they inclined to address social justice issues.

Over its first ten years, Strathclyde achieved a remarkable transformation in the way that local government was run with an emphasis on community development, positive discrimination, urban regeneration, investing in public transport and renewing outworn infrastructure. It used its financial clout effectively and utilised its influence to gain both European funding and government grants like the urban programme for its poorer communities. The politics were dominated by Labour but there were also high calibre and principled politicians from other parties and they worked collaboratively on many issues. 

There were also some charismatic senior officers such as Fred Edwards, the buccaneering Director of Social Work, who measured his performance by the number of times his photo appeared in the Evening Times. The Stalinist Director of Education who was committed to giving priority to education but shunned popularity. He was supporteded by able deputies such as Dan Burns, whose performances at Committee could be comedy gold. The Chief Constable was held to intense scrutiny by a Council committee before being recruited  as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and thereafter the face of TV tyre adverts. The larger than life Depute Director of Finance commuted in from the Isle of Bute every day and on being informed at a Council meeting by a councillor that his suit jacket was covered in white paint replied: "no. its just seagull shit from the morning ferry". 

 

Strathclyde Regional Council acquired a reputation for radical policies that were adopted by other Regional Councils and there were strong limks with the Metropolitan Counties in England. In the 1980s it worked in partnership with other European Regions and was an active player in the European Union. Its elected members and its officers had a sense of pride in working for a progressive authority.

Scottish Conservative politicians such as Secretary of States, George Younger and Malcolm Rifkind, were slightly in awe of Strathclyde Regional Council and its leading politicians and supportive of many initiatives. The same could not be said of Prime Minister Thatcher who, after disbanding the GLC and Metropolitan Councils in 1986, saw Strathclyde as the last bulwark against the neo-liberal policies she was pursuing. Her distaste for Strathclyde was shared by some of the District Councils, notably Cunningham, Kyle and Carrick, Strathkelvin and Eastwood who objected to the influence of the all-powerful region and its emphasis on urban renewal. Despite the significant benefits of these policies to Glasgow, Glasgow District Council resented the loss of its municipal muscle and that the Regional Council, despite its size, worked far more effectively with its communities than the more paternalistic District Council. The tense relationship between region and district was further aggravated by the preciousness of their respective chief executives and the leader of the District Council. 

Strathclyde Regional Council was understandably seen as being overly dominant with almost half of Scotland's population and its policies had been adopted by other regions such as Tayside, Fife, Lothian and Central. The Scottish Office was far less influential not only because it was seeking to impose Tory UK policies on a largely Labour-controlled Scotland. It could have addressed the issue of size by setting up Ayrshire as a separate region. Whilst Ayrshire looked to Glasgow as its regional centre, it was the least integrated part of the region and was a similar size to other regions such as Fife, Central or Tayside. Alternatively, the Scottish Office could have re-examined the distribution of functions between region and districts and strengthened the powers of local communities to deliver some services. But this assumed that there was such a thing as communities and that was anathema to the prime minister and her cohorts. 

Instead, the Scottish Office, encouraged by PM John Major describing Strathclyde as a monstrosity, decided to reorganise local government for the whole of Scotland. There was no Royal Commission this time, just a hastily drawn up set of proposals for unitary authorities with four options ranging from 15 to 63 units. There was a cursory consultation period before initially 25 and eventually, 32 unitary councils were designated in October 1994. The new councils were elected in April 1995 and became operational a year later. 

What is often forgotten in describing the shift to unitary councils, in itself a generally positive step, was the transfer of many functions: water, sewerage, police, fire, transport, colleges, careers, children's panels, assessors and various other functions to either joint boards or national bodies. The new unitary councils were in many ways less able to deliver services and shape development in their areas than was possible under the two-tier system of local government. This soon became apparent and precipitated the introduction of Community Planning in 1999 as a means of coordinating the activities across the illogical tartan of administrative boundaries that the Scottish Office and subsequently the Scottish Government seemed to determined to create. In practice, the centralisation of public services in Scotland and the multiplication of quangos was a severe dilution of local democracy and harbinger of the downward spiral of public services in Scotland.

Glasgow became a unitary Council again after 20 years. Although it no longer included Rutherglen, and its suburbs were spread across East Renfrewshire, East Dunbartonshire, South Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire Councils. The politicians from these councils and from the City of Glasgow adopted an anti-Strathclyde stance on many issues including an unwillingness to adopt its policies. The new councils gave short shrift to many of the staff who transferred from the regional council and this institutional memory was sacrificed on the altar of parochial pride. This extended to the use of buildings, which were sold or renamed, as with Strathclyde HQ in Glasgow that became Nye Bevan House for no obvious reason other than to bury any reference to Strathclyde. The eventual demolition of Strathclyde HQ buildings is a physical manifestation of the way that the many accomplishments of Strathclyde Regional Council have and are being erased from the history of local governance. 

It is maybe that Glasgow City Council lacks the vision of its predecessor or the confidence to deliver public services without resorting to outsourcing many functions, which it has done with a flourish. By almost all performance measures it lags behind most other Scottish Councils in its delivery of key services like education, social work and environmental issues. Try finding a public convenience in Glasgow, recycling bins or an affordable parking place. The Council has complained constantly about its lack of resources but it has been slow to modernise or streamline services in the way that other Councils have achieved. This has led to much mutual resentment with Glasgow leaving COSLA and, more justifiably, complaining about the huge resources that Edinburgh has received following the location of the Scottish Parliament there in 1999.

Strathclyde's significant contribution to the revitalisation of Scottish public services, not only made a difference but initiated policies and initiatives that were adopted by other Councils in the way that innovation and progress had always been propagated by local democracy. There was a constant stream of visits from Councils in England and Wales as well as from regions in European countries to study the Strathclyde approach to social and economic regeneration. In many ways, Strathclyde Regional Council left a far more successful legacy than the Scottish Government is achieving with its centralising tendencies and blind faith in its own judgement since its formation in 1999. 

Unfortunately, Strathclyde Regional Council preceded the onset of the internet and there has been no desire by either Glasgow City Council, as the holder of its public records, or the Scottish Government to acknowledge its achievements. Search engines are blind to Strathclyde's vast array of initiatives on social justice, economic development and community engagement that could help shape effective policies by both Councils and the Scottish Parliament. 

 

Unfortunately, local democracy has been a victim of devolution to the Scottish Parliament and this has been amplified by the press and media largely abandoning their coverage of local affairs unless there is a scandal involved. Donald Dewar in stating that 'there will a Scottish Parliament' had never intended this, he always spoke eloquently about devolution being about subsidiarity. Thus it was just as important to transfer power from the Scottish Government to local government as it was from Westminster to Holyrood. His successors as First Minister have not followed his promise, they have seen devolution as a one-way street leading to Holyrood.

St Vincent Street facade as was

India Street, now home of Scottish Power

Happy Days

Where does this connection come from?