EVERY day, councils are making decisions that shape the economic and environmental future of Scotland. From retrofitting homes to revitalising town centres, and supporting local businesses to responding to climate emergencies, this work isn’t theoretical, it’s happening on the ground, right now.

But with too little funding, and a system still skewed towards central control, local government is being asked to lead the transition with one hand tied behind its back.

That’s why I believe the most powerful changes will come from local leadership, not top-down instructions. Councils know the needs, the gaps, and the potential. We don’t need another centrally designed strategy. We need the tools to act on the opportunities already in front of us.

Local government’s role in the transition to net zero is indispensable, yet the reality is that most of us are trying to deliver this work with skeleton teams. Years of budget decisions have left environment and planning departments critically understaffed.

While we rightly protected social care and education, we now face a severe shortage of skilled professionals who can lead the local green revolution.

To put it plainly, we need more people with the right skills, and we need the money to hire them. That’s not a plea for pet projects. It’s an ask for the basic capacity to deliver what national government says it wants, thriving and sustainable communities.

We’re already doing a lot. In Dumfries, the Midsteeple Quarter regeneration is bringing new life to the town centre. We’re making buildings energy efficient, delivering social and economic benefits while reducing emissions. The Borderlands Growth Deal is another example, directing serious investment to areas that had long been left behind. But imagine what more we could do with the certainty of long-term funding.

That’s why COSLA is calling for multi-year, flexible funding. One-year budgets are like trying to build a house with only a week’s notice. Local authorities need to be able to plan ten, twenty, even thirty years ahead and that means funding agreements that reflect that reality.

Strategic planning isn’t just about economics; it’s about climate resilience too. When severe storms hit, it’s our teams on the ground who deal with the damage. If we want to build real resilience into our infrastructure, we need continuity, not patchwork responses.

The same goes for housing. Scotland’s housing crisis won’t be solved from Edinburgh alone. Councils need more powers over land and planning, and we need a system that supports energy-efficient upgrades to older properties - especially where rigid rules on listed buildings currently block progress. It’s not about lowering standards, it’s about being realistic.

Right now, in places towns across Scotland, you’ll find dozens of listed buildings that are structurally ordinary but legally unchangeable. That makes it harder to insulate them, harder to upgrade windows and harder to get landlords on board. If we want a just transition, we must remove these local barriers.

Transport is another huge piece of the puzzle. In urban areas, good public transport can genuinely compete with car use. But in rural Scotland, that’s a fantasy. We want people to reduce car dependency, but they’re often not given an alternative. Until we have a public transport system that works everywhere, not just in the cities, we will struggle to encourage people out of cars and reduce carbon emissions in transport.

There is a role for government in setting ambition, but the delivery must be local. Whether it’s heat networks, sustainable transport corridors or energy-efficient housing, success depends on empowering communities, not bypassing them. One-size-fits-all doesn’t work in a country as diverse as Scotland.

The reality is that councils, communities and businesses already know what works in their areas. From solar projects run by local sports clubs to town centre regeneration schemes rooted in community wealth building, the knowledge is there. What we need now is the freedom and funding to do more of it.

That means trusting local democracy. It means supporting councils as equal partners, not delivery agents. And it means moving beyond lip service to localism and committing to the Verity House Agreement in spirit and substance.

If we’re serious about creating a wellbeing economy and tackling the climate crisis, local government isn’t just part of the solution, it is the solution.