The leader of Edinburgh Council says the city needs more devolved powers to help it compete for investment and jobs against other parts of the UK and international rivals.
Council leader Cammy Day believes the economic influence the local authority can have is limited compared to regional mayors like Andy Burnham in Manchester.
It comes as business leaders and policymakers unveiled a Call to Action to drive good growth in Edinburgh this week, enhancing the city region’s contribution to both the Scottish and UK economies.
The city chambers is Edinburgh’s centre of local government – where the council meets.
Its responsibilities include planning and economic development – but the leader believes his hands are often tied.
Google MapsHe told STV News: “The only power we have is to increase council tax, which has been frozen for a number of years by the government.
“Everything else sits with the Scottish and UK Government. We’ve recently been given the opportunity to push forward with the visitor levy.
“What we need is things like Skills Development Scotland or Regional Enterprise devolving budgets to local authorities to allow us to take that agenda forward.
“The more local we devolve these, the better it will be for Edinburgh, Scotland and the country.”
Councillor Day said attracting more investment will help the Capital compete with other cities in Europe.
iStockHe also hopes growing the economy in Edinburgh will help create jobs and wealth in other regions such as the Lothians, Fife and the Borders.
“Outwith London, Edinburgh is one of the best performing authorities in the country,” he added.
“That’s amazing for a small city like ours, but we need to keep pushing to remain above what we can deliver and keep at the top of our game.
“We can grow that success, create more jobs and help take more people out of poverty here in the capital.
“There’s a real opportunity to do something quite exciting in Edinburgh and I’m really looking forward to that in the months and years ahead.”
Across industries ranging from creative to financial, technology, health sciences, and the green economy Edinburgh has skilled people and burgeoning businesses.
Edinburgh’s finance sector, which employs over 50,000 people and accounts for a third of Scotland’s jobs in the sector, plans to increase its economic impact by up to £7bn from its current £15bn , creating thousands of jobs.
Additionally, the Forth Green Freeport is expected to generate up to 34,000 skilled and well-paid jobs across the city region and Scotland.
The discussion now is focussed on how to ensure the next big decisions can further benefit the capital and the wider area.
STV NewsBut there’s a feeling they need to work together more to shout about what the city has to offer.
Scottish Chamber of Commerce CEO Liz McAreavey said: “What we’re not good at is telling our story outside of Scotland.
“We’re a significant contributing city in the UK’s growth agenda. With the right investment, we have huge economic growth potential.
“Edinburgh is a really resilient city because of broad sectoral strength. It has a lot of independent strategies for growth, a lot of ecosystems that have been established, but they are not as joined up as they need to be in order to be really collaborative.
“Uniting people around a common ambition and a unified story is really important. The second part is about telling our story to the rest of the world and land investment that is critical for business growth and scale.”
While Ms McAreavey downplayed comparisons with Manchester, which she described as having a “very different” economy, she said Edinburgh should be inspired by its success.
“I do understand that that leadership and that ‘selling Manchester’ – the confidence that Manchester has – that’s really important.
“To have support from the city council, with the right powers to be able to support business and make sure economic development is right up there as a priority.
“That’s how we’re going to solve societal problems – economic growth has to have a purpose; to create wealth and create jobs. That starts to address poverty, inclusion and Net Zero.
“These are all important issues for the city. We need to be empower our local authority to be able to deal with and address these issues collectively, working in partnership.”
STV NewsMetro mayors like Andy Burnham in Manchester give the biggest English cities ambassadors who can talk up their area – and have the ear of senior figures in government.
With the budget laying the groundwork for more public investment, calls were also made for different regions of the UK to work together rather than see each other as rivals.
Fintech Scotland chairman Stephen Ingledew says Edinburgh has a “significant role to play” in the UK’s economic growth.
“The opportunity to work across each other’s clusters, that diversity of innovation, fuels new opportunities for businesses to be created, attracts in new investors that say ‘Edinburgh is the place to be,'” he said.
“Edinburgh has a rich history of business growth, entrepreneurship and innovation and it’s a collaborative city.
“We don’t see it as competition – it’s an opportunity work closer with Manchester, West Midlands, Bristol, Leeds, each with their own strong economic areas of development.
“Together we make a stronger UK team that is going to benefit everybody.”
Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government Shona Robison said: “We recognise the crucial role councils play in their communities which is why, despite the profoundly challenging financial situation we face, we are making available record funding of more than £14bn to councils in 2024-25 – a real-terms increase of 4.3%.
“The Scottish Government has honoured key requests of local government to give them more powers to raise revenue and we have increased the fiscal levers available through the Verity House Agreement and the fiscal framework that will follow from it.
“Edinburgh is an important city-region and this year’s Programme for Government commits to exploring decision making and investment at a regional level, including piloting work with the Edinburgh and South East Scotland and Glasgow City-Regions as part of wider public service reform.
“The visitor levy also empowers local authorities to invest in tourism – with benefits for regional economies.”
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