Edinburgh UNISON recently had a very productive meeting with the Chief Executive of the Council, Paul Lawrence, about comments he made to a Council committee in January. (Governance, Risk and Best Value Committee – Thursday 22 January 2026, 10:00am – City of Edinburgh Council Webcasts – From 57 minutes).
UNISON raised concerns about some comments regarding staff communications to the public and councillors, which came across as critical of staff, without properly recognising the huge burden of work we all have to deal with on a daily basis and the systemic issues we face. The Chief Executive wanted to make plain that he regretted his wording and that, if may have come across as critical of individuals, when this was not his intention. UNISON welcomes this recognition, which allowed us to then have a productive meeting about the systemic issues that our members are facing.
After two decades of cuts to staffing levels, it is inevitable that service levels would fall. We have been telling the Council for years that you cannot do more with less, yet politicians are repeatedly asking for more and more from local services, whilst still passing budgets that cut or freeze staffing levels. And, as we will all know from our day jobs, it is not just internally that we are being asked to do more. The UK and Scottish governments keep adding responsibilities to our jobs without providing the funding to local government to hire more staff to do the work.
UNISON are open to continue working with the employer to improve the nature and standard of communications, but there has to be real resources invested to achieve the improvements they are looking for.
So, UNISON have suggested that the Council look at supporting staff properly with the reintroduction appropriate support to frontline staff, team leaders and managers to get better comms out to the public, and to elected members. We need to see them reduce the amount of management tasks frontline staff are now expected to complete, often on antiquated IT systems, that used to be carried out by team leaders and business managers. This won’t be news to most of our members, and you will have heard us make these arguments over the years, when the Council first cut these jobs and moved business support out of service areas. Your branch made deputations to the Council as far back as 2013 and 2014 when the Council carried out its ‘BOLD’ operation (Better Outcomes through Leaner Delivery) and followed up with the so-called, ‘Transformation’ exercise. We called it out as a folly then (https://unisonedinburgh.blogspot.com/2017/02/edinburgh-budget-response-defending.html) , and it is proving to be the case now.
You branch will always continue to stand up for you, but you are the branch. Please consider standing as a workplace Steward if there is not one in your workplace. For more information, please contact the branch office on 0131 558 7488 or branchoffice@unison-edinburgh.org.uk