And the news from planet zorg is...

In a recent article in Holyrood Magazine, the claim was made by the SNP that "the relationship between national and local government used to be much more top down”

I wonder what colour the sky is on their planet?

When I was involved n CoSLA I was regularly part of discussions with ministers about the direction and content of legislation long before it hit the statute book. CoSLA bills teams helped shaped legislation and the guidance that went with time. In the case of the revolutionary Additional Support for Learning Act, CoSLA was also at the heart of the group that wrote the guidance because then Labour Led Scottish Executive understood it was local authorities who would be implementing the act.

In contrast, the so called concordat has left local authorities with the task of delivering aspirations of the Government’s Manifesto that they cannot fund whilst being in severe danger of being in the blame game firing line as those national commitments are not achieved.

I wish that they would concentrates on the challenge at hand, that of bringing the Government to account, and not on re-writing a history that they confess in the same article that they were not part of.