Falkirk Council will operate differently after pandemic

“We’ve been through a period of crisis and change,” he said, ahead of a full council meeting on Wednesday that he hopes will agree the council’s priorities over the next three years.

But while the pandemic has brought uncertainty and difficulty to many, it also galvanised Falkirk Council to react quickly and effectively.

“There have been some real signs that in a time of crisis we have been able to be more innovative and forward looking in how we do things,” Mr Lawrie said.

In a few short weeks, thousands of council staff were equipped to work from home, education hubs for key workers were set up and support was put in place to help communities make sure no-one went hungry.

Mr Lawrie he doesn’t want to lose that energy and he is hoping councillors will back his vision for the future on Wednesday, when he sets out the council’s corporate plan.

“We can’t go back to where we were – that innovation needs to continue to be part of what we’re about as a council,” he said.

The strategy that he will present has been discussed for more than a year and in recent months the council held a consultation to find out if the public were in tune with the ideas.

Around 1500 people submitting answers online alongside workshops with various groups, involving around 100 people.

They found that people wanted the council’s priorities to be simplified; that making communities sustainable was vital; and that the council should be helping get business back on track.

“Also there was an interesting message which came out of which, to paraphrase, is that people don’t expect the council to be perfect but it needs to be more innovative,” said Mr Lawrie.

“It needs to be less bureaucratic and it needs to be demonstrably showing that it is supporting the needs of the communities it serves.

“We need to be open, we need to be responsive, we need to be innovative and and we need to be supportive of the businesses that create the wealth in our communities, working alongside them.”

The pandemic also showed that, in a crisis, departments could work together – often made possible by being given better technology to use.

“We’ve seen a huge increase in our digital capability which in normal times might have taken much longer to achieve,” said Mr Lawrie.

“But enterprise is not just about us supporting business – it’s also about us being more enterprising and looking at what we do and how we do it,” he said.

Council leader Cecil Meiklejohn says the public consultation also revealed a desire for the council to “get on with things”.

“We need to make some key decisions and actually start to move Falkirk forward – that came through quite strongly in some of the comments that were made during the consultation,” she said.

The meeting will also look at getting council meetings back up and running, although they will continue to be held virtually.