Investing In Local Services

Councils educate children and young people, provide care and support services to people, and make our neighbourhoods better places to live. Green Councillors will continue to work to protect and improve these services.

Since 2017 Green Councillors have:

Delivered more teachers and safer schools

• Delivered record teacher recruitment and investment in classroom ventilation across Scotland, thanks to funding secured by Greens at Holyrood.

Led on urgent action on the climate crisis

• Secured the adoption of a Climate Change Charter for Health and Social Care in Edinburgh; committed to the Edinburgh net-zero 2030 target; supported closing the gap on emissions, changing work practices, appointing climate champions and reporting publicly on progress; secured agreement to install recycling facilities in schools and successfully called for cycle lanes to schools along key corridors.
• Worked to make streets safer for children with permanently car-free schools in Glasgow.
• Supported bike buses to school across Scotland.

Ensured the vulnerable were protected

• Delivered a 10% increase to foster and kinship carers’ allowances, and reversed cuts to Citizens’ Advice centres and women’s aid organisations in Glasgow.
• Won agreement in Edinburgh to adopt John’s Campaign in hospital wards and care homes, ensuring that the families of those suffering from dementia have full access to their loved ones and are included in all decisions about their care.
• Ensured that Playscheme holiday provision for disabled children in Edinburgh was retained after the lockdown period.

Championed public transport

• Secured funding for a free public transport pilot in Glasgow.
• Carried out a consultation on longer and standardised hours for bus lanes in Edinburgh.
• Secured an extra £5.5 million for ferry funding in Orkney.

THRIVING SCHOOLS AND EARLY YEARS PROVISION

Scottish Greens believe in education that offers children and young people much more than qualifications – education that supports their development as confident individuals equipped to explore the opportunities and face the challenges that our fast-changing world brings. In government we have secured reform of the qualifications and inspections system, and funding for the biggest rise in teacher recruitment in a generation.

TEACHING & LEARNING

Green Councillors will:

• Support teaching which promotes literacy, numeracy, and health and wellbeing.
• Support creativity and critical thinking in the school curriculum, alongside confidence, resilience, global and local citizenship, practical life skills and outdoor learning.
• Support more play-based learning and outdoor education for young people.
• Support Gaelic medium education at primary and secondary level.
• Support parents and carers who wish to opt their children out of standardised testing.
• Promote partnerships between schools and trade unions which give young people the opportunity to learn about their rights before entering the workplace.

SCHOOLS AND STAFF

Green Councillors will:

• Work towards improving qualifications, wages and conditions for Early Years staff.
• Make free childcare hours more flexible, to support parents in shift-work or irregular employment.
• Plan for enough Early Years centres and schools in areas where populations will rise and ensure buildings are high quality, flexible spaces, with environmental sustainability at their core.
• Keep school class sizes down and replace teachers and support staff previously lost to cuts.
• Campaign to protect rural schools and maintain quality library resources in all schools.
• Maximise the use of locally sourced and organic produce in the provision of school meals.

SCHOOLS AS SAFE SPACES FOR ALL

Green Councillors will:

• Review local authority processes for dealing with sexual harassment and abuse within schools to ensure that survivors feel able to come forward and that a zero-tolerance approach is consistently taken.
• Ensure that consent is taught as a core part of Sex & Relationships Education (SRE).
• Make schools LGBTI-inclusive, this includes implementing the Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) proposals.
• Support refugee and asylum seeker young people to fully access the educational and social opportunities available in school.
• Ensure that classrooms are Covid safe and appropriately ventilated and heated.
• Make the Health & Wellbeing Census available to everyone in the relevant age-group.

EMPOWERING PUPILS, STAFF AND PARENTS/CARERS

Green Councillors will:

• Reform Education Committees to include parents/carers, teachers, trade unions and young people.
• Ensure that schools have resources available to support the creation of independent Pupil Unions, so that young people can have their voices heard in education.

Providing additional support

Green Councillors will:

• Ensure that every child or young person with additional support needs who would benefit from a Coordinated Support Plan receives one, including care-experienced young people.
• Require that all staff assigned to support individual young people with additional needs have the appropriate training and/or qualifications to do so effectively.
• Make counselling available to all pupils by establishing a right to access school-based counselling provided by qualified mental health practitioners.
• Support pupils at risk of falling behind and support alternative provision for those for whom mainstream provision is not working.

POVERTY-PROOFING SCHOOLS

Green Councillors will:

• Introduce statutory guidance to cap the cost of school uniforms and ensure that uniform requirements are gender neutral and do not discriminate on the basis of any protected characteristic.
• Introduce uniform reuse schemes and support uniform banks to reduce waste and costs to parents/carers.
• Ensure all families have access to income maximisation teams, helping low-income households access the social security payments they are entitled to.
• Ensure all children have access to healthy and nutritious school meals and continue to push for the expansion of free school meals to older age groups.
• Immediately cancel all outstanding debt owed by pupils/families for school meals.

CREATING A HEALTHY AND CARING SCOTLAND

Scottish Green Councillors believe everyone has a right to the best physical and mental health, and access to high quality care, which is free at the point of use, maintaining individual freedom, choice and dignity.  
The pandemic has shone a light on the results of a decade of under-investment
in Scottish health and social care and the growing inequalities in public health and life expectancy. Waiting lists across social care are unacceptably high - as are staff shortages across services - making delivery of the preventative agenda and person-centred care harder to achieve.
Green Councillors will ensure that Health and Social Care is delivered locally, with community involvement at its heart, and that staff are properly valued.

ENSURE LOCAL DELIVERY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Green Councillors will:

• Ensure that the majority of care at home and care home services are provided by the public and voluntary sectors.
• Ensure that opportunities to bring private care at home and care home services in-house are taken up where appropriate, increasing control and accountability, while ensuring continuity of care.
• Support and enable locally-led social care partnerships and social enterprises, including local disabled people’s organisations, to provide good quality social care.
• Ensure that the development and delivery of services is fully informed by the views and suggestions of all service users and unpaid carers.

PROMOTE AND ENABLE GOOD HEALTH

Green Councillors will:

• Work with local communities and trade unions to ensure all Council policies aim to improve people’s wellbeing, and tackle the root causes of poor health, such as poverty, inequality, addiction, poor housing and air pollution. Ensure that there is good quality green space within walking distance of all our homes with access to seating, ‘Changing Places’ toilets, public conveniences and services so we can all enjoy the benefits all year round.
• Make funding available to the community sectors to provide out of school activities and opportunities for sports, culture and leisure for disabled young people.
• Provide a range of services for older people, recognising personal choice, and that they may wish to be supported and looked after in different ways at different times in their lives.
• Ensure the value of continuity of care is respected, keeping care workers and the people they support connected.
• Ensure that everyone who needs mental health support has access to the right support, at the right time, by providing mental health staff at all GP practices and funding for community-based support groups and activities patients may be referred to.
• Support HIV Scotland’s Generation Zero campaign to eliminate HIV transmission in Scotland by 2030.
• Strengthen the policy around alcohol licensing, with the aim of reducing availability and reducing alcohol harm.
• Ensure access to free contraception and access to sexual health clinics.
• Ensure that local authorities Keep The Promise so that all young people grow up loved, safe and respected (www.carereview.scot/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/The-Promise.pdf).

SUPPORT OUR STAFF

Green Councillors will:

• Support all health and social care staff to make sustainable travel choices including by making work-travel free at the point of use, including public transport, with appropriate training and financial support where needed.
• Ensure that the pay and conditions of paid carers reflect their expertise. Greens in Government have helped deliver pay rises for carers and Green Councillors support calls for social care workers to be paid at least £15 an hour.
• Support fair working practices by tackling zero-hours contracts, ensuring social care workers are paid for shift handovers, for time spent travelling between jobs and travelling expenses and have opportunities for continuing professional development.
• Provide free period products across council buildings and ensure they are made truly and fully accessible to staff, young people and those in need.

RESPECT UNPAID CARERS

Green Councillors will:

• Ensure that unpaid carers receive regular breaks to suit their needs and are fully supported with adult carer support plans ensuring their own physical and mental health needs.
• Take steps to improve unpaid carers’ financial security - for example, providing income maximisation advice to all unpaid carers and providing concessionary travel for unpaid carers on income support.
• Make sure income assessments for care charges do not include Carer’s Allowance, while we work to eliminate all care charges.
• Support young unpaid carers by minimising children’s practical caring responsibilities whenever possible, providing access to peer support and developing local forms of financial support.

SUPPORT THOSE FACING ADDICTION

Green Councillors will:

• Take an evidence-based, public health approach to tackling drug overdose and other addiction related deaths.
• At the frontline, support the personcentred approach to addiction with a focus on drop-in services, including drug consumption rooms and crisis centres which are accessible, making people safer and providing holistic support.
• Ensure that drug users who leave treatment or statutory services, whether planned or unplanned, receive follow-up support.
• Work with addiction services to address stigma and increase resources available for family and friends and support campaigns that increase drug overdose awareness.
• Provide specialist care home provision for those suffering from Alcohol Related Brain Damage.

SUPPORTING PEOPLE IN CRISIS

Scottish Greens believe councils have a key role to play in tackling poverty and helping people avoid crisis. Local councils can help tackle inequality and we will prioritise an equalities-led approach, working closely with those whose opportunities may be reduced due to class, race, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief.

Green Councillors will:

• Campaign to secure funding for support services for those who have experienced domestic abuse or sexual violence.
• Implement rent controls with a ‘housing first’ approach to homelessness, with measures to empower tenants at risk of homelessness through better advice and access to legal aid and improve the standard of temporary accommodation available.
• Ensure that every person leaving prison, hospital, residential rehabilitation, or fleeing domestic violence is provided with accommodation that meets their assessed needs.
• Help people to claim the social security benefits they are entitled to with ‘income maximisation’ teams embedded within communities.
• Welcome refugees and asylum seekers into our communities and push to ensure relevant support services are available to meet their specific needs as well as support for people with No Recourse to Public Funds.
• Push to take asylum housing and support out of private hands, so it is run by councils in partnership with the third sector, ensuring dignified, safe housing based in communities, not hotels.
• Commit to discussions across local authorities on how to expand participation in dispersal schemes for people seeking asylum throughout Scotland.
• Campaign to give people seeking asylum the right to work.
• Provide free bus travel to refugees and asylum seekers.
• Support a holistic approach to food policy, tackling the health, social and environmental impacts of food.
• Support community food projects which work to ensure good food is available to all.
• Work with businesses to identify healthier, local and ethical food choices, including plant-based food, and promote these through council catering and public information campaigns.

BETTER PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Being able to travel broadens our opportunities. Scottish Greens want to improve our public transport options,
while reducing car use, making it possible for everyone to access the services and places they need. This will require both new infrastructure and new models for ownership, management and integration of transport services.

Green Councillors will:

• Connect communities with better bus services, actively support rural bus services in order to maintain thriving towns and villages and champion the creation of a publicly owned bus company in areas without one.
• Support the complete transition to electric vehicles for public transport and the development of a charging point network for electric cars.
• Integrate low carbon modes of transport through deploying Mobility as a Service, Demand Responsive Transport, and delivering integrated transport hubs and ticketing systems.
• Ensure connectivity of bus and rail services by using powers under the new Transport Act when franchising to require providers to offer integrated through-tickets with fare caps.
• Increase the reach and quality of digital connectivity to create alternatives to travel.
• Review accessibility of public transport provision and deliver recommendations that make public transport as inclusive as possible, with particular focus on transport connections and the needs of those making multi-stage journeys.
• Promote the National Entitlement Card (NEC) scheme and support marginalised communities through the process, to ensure the highest possible uptake of free bus travel for under 22s.
• Support extending NEC eligibility, particularly the current three-year period of validity for people with chronic or degenerative conditions, and work to improve the NEC application process to ensure it is as accessible as possible.
• Implement a workplace parking levy in areas where this would be appropriate and beneficial to encourage shifts in travel to work practices, reduce congestion and improve air quality.
• Work with the Scottish Government to formulate an innovative fleet replacement strategy for Islands Councils, to add capacity and replace ageing ferry fleets with renewable fuelled vessels, ensuring lifeline services are maintained.
• Support and plan for the reopening of rail lines and stations, including through the Strategic Transport Projects Review and other means, such as identifying sites in Local Development Plans, protecting strategic rail corridors and supporting rail in City and Growth Deals.