The Mercat Group
Improving local democracy
ABOUT US
The Mercat Group is an informal network of former Chief Executives of Scottish Councils.
We are non-political and offer considered experience and evidence-based views to stimulate debate and promote the enhancement of local democracy.
Early meetings were held in premises overlooking Edinburgh’s Mercat Cross in 2019. In Scotland, the Mercat Cross is the traditional place for public announcements, learning news and hearing gossip, so we thought it appropriate to take the name for our group.
WHO WE ARE
* Bill Howat (Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar )
* David Hume (Scottish Borders) – retired Nov 2022, deceased 2025
* Phil Jones (Dumfries and Galloway)
*John Mundell (Inverclyde, Orkney and Moray) – joined Aug 2023
* George Thorley (South Ayrshire)
* Gavin Whitefield (North Lanarkshire)
* Keith Yates (Stirling)
Our combined experience covers every aspect of public policy and service delivery – from developing policies and legislation through to implementation of policy and the delivery of public services and major programmes/projects. We also have considerable experience of working in and with the private and voluntary sectors.
Our considered view is that the Governance of Scotland has drifted to over-centralised control of both public policy and services over the last 50 years. That trend is not unique to Scotland. Other democracies have experienced similar centralising ‘drift’. The centralising of power has been masked by the emergence of a raft of non-elected bodies – ‘Scotland’s crowded public sector landscape’. Scottish Ministers have accepted the need to ‘sort out the Spaghetti’, to no tangible effect.
We argue that the time is right to address this fundamental flaw in our democracy.