Local Authorities Guide: City of Edinburgh Council

The following article is a Q&A with Labour Jane Meagher, leader of the City of Edinburgh Council.

The Public Sector Reform strategy is a key mission of the Scottish Government, what does that mean for you and your council?

As a city we are grappling with several significant challenges, including addressing our housing emergency, tackling poverty and achieving net zero. The public sector reform strategy is very welcome, and I am sure it will help us to address these challenges. Crucially, we need more flexibility in the funding that we get from government, and we need it to be longer term. This will allow us to deliver meaningful change in our communities. 

Are there particular innovative or collaborative ways of working that you can point to in your own council as examples of how you can do more with less?

Councils have been doing more with less for far too long now and I hesitate to suggest ways for this to continue. What we need is to do things differently, through flexible, multi-year funding and to collaborate regionally with neighbouring local authorities to deliver on shared objectives such as providing enough housing and clean energy. 

AI is held up as a potential game changer in terms of public service delivery but on the ground, what contribution is digital technology making to your own approach?

We recently ran a successful pilot within our social work teams to enable them to use AI to help write their meeting notes. The aim of this was to save time and increase their capacity to meet with their service users. 

While this was a successful pilot, we must be careful not to move too quickly in rolling out AI across the council and make sure that we have effective safeguards in place to protect people’s private and personal data. 

What counts as a good day in the office?
The challenges we face as a city are substantial, ending poverty or achieving net zero are generational challenges and so a good day is one where we take any small step towards addressing these problems. 

What keeps you awake at night?
The fact that one in five children in the city still live in poverty. Lifting these children out of poverty is the reason I am in politics. 

How do you describe what you do as council leader to a stranger?

Given the delicate political balance within the council most of my job is about trying to build consensus and ensure there is enough support to make sure that the business of the council can continue and that we can make progress in achieving our ambitious goals. 

This article appears in Holyrood's Local Authorities Guide 2026.