Our first blog of the New Year is by Andrew Ferguson. Here he talks about regional governance and what that means for transport in the South East of Scotland.
This April, it will be 30 years since Scotland’s local government was split into districts and regions, with the regions having responsibility for education, social work, strategic land use planning and, amongst other things, transportation.
Since that two-tier system vanished into the mists of council history, Scotland’s 32 unitary authorities, ranging in size from our largest cities to Clackmannanshire (pop. 50,000) have had the full range of council functions under their control. And yet…
And yet, in reality, the tug between the desire to keep things ‘local’ in local government, and the need to deliver things at scale across larger geographies, has never gone away. Since the Scottish Parliament resurfaced after a near 300-year absence in May 1999, some things formerly done by councils have been taken to a national level: most notably police and fire.
It also took less than ten years after 1996 for some form of regional governance to be reinstituted in spatial planning (Strategic Development Planning authorities, since replaced with regional spatial strategies) and in transportation, in terms of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2005.
The Regional Transport partnerships set up under the 2005 Act vary in size and remit. At one end of the spectrum, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) effectively replaced the former Passenger Transport Executive for the region, operating public transport services directly alongside overall transport planning. Other RTPs, including SEStran, have as their main functions the creation of a Regional Transport Strategy and the duty to oversee its implementation.
More recently, the rise of UK and Scottish Government-funded Growth Deals has focused thinking on what else can be delivered most effectively at regional level, especially around the city regions of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Perth and Aberdeen. In December the First Minister announced his administration’s intention to bring in legislation to allow ‘regional partnerships’ to be created, focusing on areas such as skills and economic development.
This recognition of the regional element to delivering public services does not stop at the Tweed. In England, the traditional patterned quilt of councils large and small is gradually smoothing itself out with the creation of Combined Authorities (CAs), driven by Westminster policy that encourages the move towards regional bodies.
The best known examples of CAs are the mayor-led ‘northern powerhouses’ like Andy Burnham’s Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region. However, more recent CAs such as East Midlands, a combination of Nottingham and Derby with the much more rural Peak District, are less well established local authority units. Transport is often delivered via a semi-autonomous ‘arm’ of the CA, such as TFL and TfGM.
Where does transport – and, specifically, the RTPs, fit into this move towards regionalisation? SEStran has traditionally taken a collaborative and co-ordinating role in such things as EV charging and Bus Alliances. The legislation, in section 14, enables this collaborative approach by allowing councils – and Transport Scotland – to ask RTPs to carry out tasks for them by agreement.
SEStran’s strategic presence has been growing recently, with three notable areas worth mentioning: management of the People and Place Fund for the region on behalf of Transport Scotland, the Regional Bus Strategy, launched in December 2025; and our co-ordinating role in building a business case for mass transit on the region. All of these advances can be delivered going forward by agreement with the region’s councils and the national body, Transport Scotland.
Regionalisation is a big issue for policy makers to digest at one go. The creation of regional bodies in many areas of public service will need primary legislation – even when the dust has settled on the policy debate. In comparison, the opportunity to strengthen regional delivery of transport functions exists within the compass of existing powers.
All that is needed is consensus about what that regional transport body should look like, a discussion already in play.
