Wednesday October 28th 2026
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East Lothian council needs to be more honest with communities about its financial problems if it is to rebuild relationships with local residents, a review has found.
An independent review of how the local authority engages with its communities has made a series of recommendations to help the council create new working relationships with the people it serves.
And it highlights the need for more ‘candour’ in discussions with communities amid claims there is a perception that public consultations do not lead to change.
A meeting of the full council this week heard the independent review by Professor Donna Hall, CBE, could lead to East Lothian becoming the first Scottish council to adopt a relational approach to its decision making instead of a ‘transactional’ one.
But she said changes were needed at organisational level and structural level within the council as she urged them to use more ‘candour’ when explaining their actions to the public.
And she highlighted the need to use the community strengths available including te Volunteer Centre East Lothian (VCEL) third sector to ensure those voices which are often unheard in public consultations are not forgotten.
Professor Hall told the council meeting East Lothian has all the strengths needed to bring about change in the way it works with its residents and highlighted several areas where outstanding co-working was going on.
However she said the questions which came up repeatedly during the review was whether the council was listening to the views of residents.
She said: “East Lothian is a fantastic place with a great many assets: committed officers, innovative voluntary sector leadership, strong third sector relationships, deep civic pride, vibrant communities, renewed ambition and a new chief executive whose arrival creates an opportunity to reset how the council works with the people it serves.”
She added: “East Lothian does not lack engagement activity. What it lacks is engagement designed to produce change rather than to confirm existing intent.
“The question that recurs across the consultation, asked by community representatives, voluntary sector leaders and officers alike, is whether the council is listening in order to change or listening in order to confirm what it already intends to do.
“That question, arising independently from many sources, is the starting point for this review and the thread that runs through everything that follows.”
Professor Hall made eleven recommendations to change the council’s future engagement with its communities and councillors to ask officers to bring forward a further report on future action.
Council leader Norman Hampshire told the meeting: “This has made me think more about some of the decisions which we have taken and the way we went about it. We could have done things differently and it may not have been quite as controversial as it was.
“There are challenges but we need to find ways to engage with the whole community not just the loudest voices.”
The full independent review report is available to read in council papers published on its website.
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