Local Authorities Guide: South Lanarkshire Council

The following is a Q&A with Labour Joe Fagan, leader of South Lanarkshire Council.

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

Public sector reform is about more than efficiency – it’s about effectiveness. The drive for efficiency can be counter-productive if it is solely a means to reduce spending. Public sector reform is about providing services in a better way, backed by evidence, and constantly challenging ourselves to be more collaborative, more preventative, more enterprising and ultimately more effective. If we are driving better outcomes for service users and communities then we can liberate local government from the costs and burdens of poor outcomes, whether that’s poverty or ill-health. We can much more effectively manage demand within the system.

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?

Our new Family Support Hubs have just been nationally recognised at the COSLA Excellence Awards. They provide an early social work response for families to prevent an escalation to statutory teams through intensive whole family support. These are dedicated, community-facing teams working with pregnant women, babies, and children and young people up to the age of 18. They are freeing up capacity in social work field offices, and they are getting better results for families. It’s early intervention in action.

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?

There are big strategic challenges to grapple with over how to digitally upskill the workforce and work through the practical and ethical implications of expanding AI, but at the local level there are already positive examples of good practice emerging. Young people, teachers, and parents in one of our schools developed guidance on the use of generative AI. We hear a lot of the dangers associated with poor quality outputs or plagiarism but well-used generative AI models are increasingly part of the world of work so we want learners to be confident knowing how to use AI properly. We are also using AI to reduce bureaucracy and form-filling and to support a whole range of functions, including audit.

What counts as a good day in the office?

A good day at the office is when you’ve actually been able to see something through to completion. Knowing that something has changed because you made a decision. It’s not always the big stuff. My flat looks out over a football pitch that has just been upgraded because councillors backed a £13m investment fund in leisure and cultural services. I’ve followed that policy every step of the way – from conception to the budget, to the arguments over raising council tax to fund new investment to seeing a pitch completed in my community. There are real consequences to the decisions we take.

What keeps you awake at night?

It’s not what we do as a council that keeps me awake at night. It’s what we don’t. It’s knowing that austerity has cast a long shadow and demand for services is rising but funding settlements still fall short. I want to invest more in frontline services, more in maintenance, more in our economy – but I can only invest the limited amounts I can raise locally and what comes to councils in the local government settlement. Councils need a game changer if we are to properly staff up, skill up and build back local services.

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

It’s the most hands-on job in Scottish politics. You’re closest to the consequential decisions in your community than any other politician. You don’t have enough control over them because so much of your budget is decided by the Scottish Government, rather than in your community. But you’re there for five years at a time in a job that can make a difference. You can’t change everything, but you’ve got to change what you can. It’s a tough job but it’s an amazing opportunity for anyone who believes in public service. So, make the most of it while you can.  

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