Interview with Pippa Milne, Chief Executive of Argyll and Bute Council

Pippa Milne is Chief Executive of Argyll and Bute Council and current chair of Solace Scotland. She began her career as a trainee trading standards officer before working her way into senior leadership roles in local authorities across the UK. She joined Argyll and Bute Council in 2014 as an executive director, becoming chief executive in 2019. With such a broad range of experience in local government leadership, she brings a valuable perspective on the challenges facing the sector today.

Timestamps:

01:23 Pippa’s journey through local government
04:40 How the chief executive role has evolved
06:07 Leading collaboration through Solace Scotland
09:30 Making the case for empowered local government
11:39 Public service reform: barriers and opportunities
15:32 A place-based approach and the single authority model
19:52 Funding pressures and the future of local government finance
24:26 Outcomes over uniformity: rethinking postcode lotteries
26:00 Managing local democracy and the Tobermory school debate
33:48 Preparing local government for future challenges
38:06 Advice for the next generation of local government leaders

You can watch the full interview on Youtube here

You have had a very long and varied career working for local authorities. What are the most significant changes you have seen in local government over your career?

I started as a trainee trading standards officer in Fife Regional Council and there was the first change of the various iterations of local government reorganisation we’ve had over that period. One of the things that I reflect back on was my dad who’d worked in local government said that would be a great job. It’s a statutory service, you’ll have a job for life and I think that has shifted massively. I think about the scale of resources in trading standards then versus what we have now and how creative and innovative and pressured that is now as a service to deliver.

I moved to Shropshire and that became Telford and Wrekin. I moved to the Borough of Poole, which is now part of a combined authority. I worked in Leeds and then Edinburgh and now here. All of those look very different now in that restructured environment. It’s both the constraints that we’ve had from 2008 onwards in terms of the structural financial challenges that we’ve had. I remember seeing the graph that showed we’d have that austerity and we’d lift back up again. We’ve never seen that lift back up again. I think local government as a result has become very creative and innovative.

The complexity that we work in and the way that we work as leaders of place and use influence in place as leaders to work in a much more joined up way across services and organisations to deliver with much more of a focus on outcomes. You vastly change the way that people are delivering services.

The other bit to reflect on is also the opportunities in local government have opened up.I started as a trainee trading standards officer and I don’t think back in those days chief executives came from trading standards. If you  look in Scotland now, I’m really pleased to see as well that we’ve got a widespread number of chief executives representing pretty much all the professional areas of local government work; it’s no longer reserved to the lawyers and the accountants. There are changes for the better in terms of that system’s approach and how accessible it is for careers, but there are clearly a lot of challenges and a lot of changes.

Do you think that being chief executive of a council now requires a very different skill set from what the chief executive would have been doing when you started off as a trainee trading standards officer?

I absolutely do. Clearly, you know your time and I didn’t get to sit in this chair then. But yes, my sense is very different. In my sense there was much more of an emphasis on the heroic leadership style. Now we’re much more with facilitators, we’re enablers, we’re negotiators, we’re systems thinkers. It’s very much about building the relationships and finding the route through collaboration and being communicators with communities and balancing all the range of views that we have to mediate as local authorities. It has changed massively.

As Solace Scotland chair, what are your ambitions for Solace and the local government sector this year? And what are your main asks of the new Scottish Government?

We’re really lucky because every chief executive in Scotland is a member of Solace and we come together at least once a month. The level of collaboration is fantastic. We’re all working on transformation and together for local government. That is a real testament and every local authority is invested in that work. I don’t know of anywhere else in the UK that can say that on a country-wide basis. We’ve been over recent years trying to build our voice in that space of reform and what that needs to look like to get the best out of local government. We’re all very passionate about the role that we can play. So we’ve been working really hard alongside COSLA and colleagues in Scottish Government around that public sector reform agenda especially.

Our own work with the improvement service has been going on for a number of years and  that stepped up a gear post the parliamentary elections for Holyrood. We’re really trying to push for a real vision for the public sector across Scotland because we think that overall vision because local government interacts in so many different places. An example being you’ve got a governance structure for health reform that is separate from the rest of the public sector at the moment in Scotland and the argument is that there is a really important interaction and touch point with that and it needs to be clear.

What would be massively helpful when we’re looking at this – and government has a stated aim to look at the number of public bodies is a systematic view of what needs to sit nationally – what needs to sit regionally and what needs to sit locally to get the best outcomes and for us. 

Having done the job in my initial couple of years through COVID, however terrible that was, there were some really great lessons in terms of the empowerment that local government was able to use and that clarity of purpose. There is something about true empowerment to be able to bring place-based approaches. We know our areas, we know how to work in our local areas and to work in that system in the local area. We need the policy and funding and long-term funding to align with that and then let us get on and do what we’re good at because we’re trying to pull in the same direction we’ve got a lot to offer.

I thought that was going to be followed through with the Verity House Agreement that really recognised that role for local government. It’s going to be really interesting with the European Charter on Self-Government having gone through the Scottish Parliament now as to the role that that can play on establishing that because that has a real focus on subsidiarity Solace in any shape or form sees that we need to do everything. 

There are some things that need to be done once for Scotland, there’s some things that need to be done once for local government, some things will work better on a regional basis, but there are absolutely things that working with local partners and being that leader of place that we can do really well; working with our community groups groups, the third sector with individual communities were exemplified in that COVID response. At the moment we’re lacking that overall vision. We’ve got a framework around PSR. We need that vision of what sits where, because we’re going to need to work at pace to deal with the financial challenge and all change like on that scale is complicated and time consuming if you’re not careful and not focused on the outcomes.

I talked about the benefits of Solace and how we work together but actually the public sector in Scotland is relatively small and accessible as well and there were really strong relationships across that that work really well. There’s a lot of good foundations there that we can build on. We need to be clear what our priorities are and what can deliver impact because sometimes there’s a danger of trying to do everything all at once and we’re not at a time when efficiencies and tweaking around the edges work, we need real, real reform.

The theme for the 2026 Solace Scotland Conference is “Public Service Reform: Delivering Change Together.” What does successful reform look like and what stands in the way of achieving it?

We work in a complex and arguably fragmented environment and we have short-term funding cycles and a lack of prioritisation sometimes. We need to look at how we break some of those down. Through the work we’ve been doing with the Improvement Service, we’ve got a portal now that sets out all the powers and duties of local government. 

As a really simple example, we’re starting to go back through that and stripping out some of the things that are in there that arguably aren’t adding value. There are a lot of plans for this and arguably not focused on the big outcomes. If we could focus on things like the whole family wellbeing support approach and I think we can all get behind the First Minister’s aspirations around that, but then we need to make sure we’re aligning the performance management outcomes and things around that. We say that’s important but then we measure delayed discharge. Aligning the things where there is a current disconnect and thinking about how we can streamline some of that. 

Sometimes it can be very difficult to get decision making working around place when you’re trying to align a locally place based organisation with those working to national priorities-  and then those two don’t come together and we get paralysis and inaction.

One of the other things that you’ve done in Argyll and Bute is exploring that single authority model.. Could you tell us a bit about that journey? Where did that thinking get to? What’s its current status and how do you see the sort of benefits of that?

It is about looking at a whole system place based approach. In population terms, Argyll and Bute is about 87,000. We’re not a big area, but, geographically, arguably we’re a region if you look at it with our dispersed population and challenges. 

You can’t look at anyone streaming in isolation because how you deliver health links to skills, links to the housing to get the staff there, links to the transport to access of patients, links to what else we can do from an economic development, for example. It’s all interrelated because of the scale of our system and that dispersion. What it’s looking at is trying to bring those things together and to look at it from a strong democratic accountability structure that reflects the place and aligns planning and funding and delivery. 

We’re looking at the HSEP functions that, in our case, are fully delegated in the first step. If you take that a very simple level, it would be going to one plan rather than three plans. We’ve got good integration in the area, but we want to build on that and take it to the next level and look at what we can do by removing the barriers and the friction in the system to do that. So we’ve been at it a little while and it came out of the local governance review pre-COVID and it was Island authority colleagues that started the journey. We really saw the potential post-COVID and we’ve been working alongside Orkney and Western Isles since then. Whilst we’ve got slightly different versions, we also collaborate in that very Scottish style. 

It poses a lot of opportunity because we also look at it from the point of view that we’re part of the Highlands and Islands. We’re part of Highland Health Board, but all our care pathways are to Glasgow and all our transport links to Glasgow. We don’t fit neatly, to either the north of us or the south east of us. Considering that, we’ve been working alongside government. We got an outline before the election and an endorsement to keep going on that basis before the election. I think that’ll be part of the focus of PSR in the next phase and  I would expect the pace and the scale of ambition to probably ramp up with that and we would certainly welcome that. 

It’s part of what we would be arguing as Solace – a differentiated approach across Scotland. I think the cities will probably be more interested in regional economic partnership. The whole place system is probably our version and I’m sure other councils or groups of councils will have other versions that would work better in their circumstances.

Council tax in Argyll and Bute was raised by 9.7% for 2026/27 and there were big rises across the country. How critical is the funding gap for local authorities and what needs to change systematically with regard to local government finances?

There’s the multi-million dollar question. Literally. It is getting increasingly difficult for councils. I think the council tax rises you saw across Scotland are evidence of that. COSLA also set out a structural deficit around social care and that’s probably a £750 million gap across Scotland. That’s probably the one that scares chief executives the most because it is so fundamental to the impacts we can have on health and what you want to be able to do from a moral standpoint in communities.

There are undoubtedly things we can continue to do in efficiency and transformation but I think we need to look at more fundamental reform and how we do things differently. COSLA set out in its white papers a move to proportional universalism required and you know that’s something that needs discussion of what are we spending the money on and being evidence and data led about where we can have the impact.

We would argue we need multi-year flexible funding so that we can plan better and more strategically to deliver the change. We need more freedom to raise revenue locally. We’ve seen some of that in terms of the visitor levy but there are long lead times in some of that and then they’re not easy to get through. 

I heard somewhere in the press that councils raised something like six percent of their income and in Germany it’s 30 percent or something. In terms of what we control, it’s small. It’s something that gives that sense of accountability locally because the mechanisms are not well understood with the public. They’re paying more in council tax, but perhaps they don’t understand what a small proportion it is of our budgets. We need the freedom to invest more in prevention. We would have wanted to be doing that earlier to make an impact because it’s not going to get you a quick shift in the balance of demand. 

We’re a long time past Christie and we still haven’t cracked on. It’s about aligning the funding to outcomes. There’s a potential benefit of looking strategically at where the money is and where the things are that are driving change and impact, versus the overall pots of money and how much we spend at multiple levels. Accounting for that when we all have duties of best value and following the public pound and have a grown-up approach to where the accountability sits for some of those things that deliver change.

One of my bug bears is when people talk about postcode lottery and actually it’s painted as a really negative thing. If I look at my area, service delivery won’t be the same as central Glasgow. If I’m delivering services for 200 people on coal, it shouldn’t be the same and we shouldn’t aspire to that and, physically, it’s not going to be possible for it to operate on the same basis, but they deserve the same outcomes as anybody else.

One ongoing issue Argyll & Bute Council has been dealing with is plans for a new school to be built on the Isle of Mull which have been met with substantial local opposition. Could you explain the background to that, including why the proposal was so contentious? What decision the council made and the opposition to it? What the Scottish Government’s role has been? And what is happening now?

Our members are very visible to their communities. They’re very identifiable and people will be very quick to tell them if they don’t like something or what their views are. They are very close and able to reflect that and all the nuances around those decisions because the 200 people on coal don’t have a homogenous view of how they want to see things done and neither should they. I think Tobermory and Mull school is a really useful example of the challenges that local government works through on that.

We’ve got an island of around 3000 people. We’re looking at a development of a project that’s in the region of £50 million. I’m really proud that we have that kind of ambition for our Islands and that we’ve got teams that will take that on. For us, that’s a massive scale of a project. It was going to be a difficult one because you have the existing school in Tobermory as a 3 to 18 campus. You have different views on the island as to where the replacement school should be. It serves multiple Islands but they have said they would prefer to still send their children to school in Oban which is where children from the south of Mull currently go. 

You’ve got a campus of roughly 350 pupils, 84% of the children are schooled on the island. About 17 from the Ross of Mull, the board in Oban, and some of who have a view about where the school should be, amongst others. So there is not a single view. We’ve tried very hard to engage across the island, bringing those into account, balancing the educational benefits, balancing the views of young people through the UNCRC and the costs and practicalities of where the alternative would be to build two schools. One primary in Tobermory and one secondary in the middle or south of the island that would see a lot of children add an average of over three hours to their commute if they’re coming from some parts of the island. So there is not an easy answer to that one and I think that is one of the challenges and the strengths of local government. We have to work locally and mediate all of those views. 

You asked right in the beginning what’s changed and I suppose one of the biggest changes is also doing this in a social media age where everybody’s got a platform to share their views and our members have to balance the loud from the great number – not having one homogenous view. 

It’s also frustrating for some of the press as well. At the moment, immediately, following the election, we reached out to the cabinet secretary to engage on the project because it is such an important one for us. But the press is reporting that we are refusing to engage with the Scottish government on the matters. It’s a challenge for our officers and it’s something we have to support them because it can be very difficult to manage. You could understand that because everybody’s got different aspirations and that is part of the role but that’s why our members, who are local, get a really strong sense of that. They don’t just hear what’s loud on social media – they’re talking to the people in the street and their surgeries. I’m now trying to balance all of that in coming to a way forward.

Someone, somewhere has to mediate those views. So the question is not does an institution gain? Can a school be built without some institution mediating between those different viewpoints? Who then should it be?

We need to keep challenging ourselves with what mechanisms we use to do that in that social media world. In my own geography we’re very mindful. It’s often small communities and you need to find space to hear people who want to not upset the peace of the small community they live in but still have a view. It is about trying to find the space. 

You can’t just do a big public meeting and have people come along because some people just won’t want to raise their view in that space. We do need to do that which means we’re in a unique position of hearing a wider range of views than some people might have. 

We’re not immune to continuing to evolve how we approach this. Our officers have gone to great lengths to try and do engagement in a way that they can hear from as many people as possible. Our members have to balance that view of the investment and the range of factors in taking that forward. Members these days are faced with a lot of difficult decisions. It’s not a job to take if you want the cutting of ribbons and a positive story.

If we look ahead 10–15 years, what do you think will be the defining challenge or opportunity for local government in Scotland? What advice would you give to today’s and tomorrow’s local leaders as they navigate that future?

That’s a really hard question to pick one defining challenge, to be honest. I think it is about an ability to sit with that uncertainty and have some agility in how we respond. We also need to look forward to the long term. It’s very easy when we are constrained financially and in terms of people capacity we have to focus on the here and now – balancing the budget and collecting the bins and fixing the potholes.

We do have to safeguard some capacity to be able to look at that long term and look at how we’re planning for that; how are we planning for the projects of the future, what data and evidence have we got to best prepare ourselves for that and then be ready to flex as the situation moves. It’s moving really fast. If I look back I’ve been here in Argyll and Bute for 12 years now but in the last three years, climate resilience has become a massive issue in terms of challenges to our transport infrastructure. 

We’re going to have to look differently at that and change some of our focus and that’s just one issue. We need to then look beyond that and say ‘what does that mean looking out at the long term?’.

The other one is also looking at the workforce. Across Scotland and the population projections, that will be a challenge. Skills have now changed. How do we start to create the skills and leadership for the future that will look very different in a world of AI and technology and a shortage of skills to deploy. What does that need to look like? I don’t think you can necessarily pick that and say, ‘here’s a certain future that you’re planning for.’ However, you can acknowledge that it’s not certain and start to look at it from that perspective.

Is what you’re describing is an adaptive learning organisation that is able to flex with change, while dependent on having the capacity and having the people to do so?

Learning organisations are one of my great soap boxes because I do think we do great things but we can always take learning out of it. And we need to keep doing that. And we need to keep looking at what others are doing in Scotland, UK, outside of the UK, and constantly be adapting and responding to that as well.

We can sometimes get into a defensive crouch and feel the need to say that but we also need to change the conversation to, how can we make it acceptable to trial change, fail fast, and in how we deliver things, if we’re going to respond to that, because we’re very much in the public eye and people love to point out when something goes wrong.

I think changing the culture a bit means that we’re going to try things and we’re going to need to be fleet of foot and do that and actually trying stuff and adapting it if it doesn’t work is a good thing.

For someone starting out now who was sort of thinking about a career in local government in Scotland, what would be your best piece of advice to them?

It’s a great career. There are such a range of jobs. I defy people not to find a job that doesn’t float the boat in local government because it is so varied. You can define your own career path. That can be to have professional expertise or it can be into a leadership role or it can be working frontline or with communities. There is a lot of scope and I think if you want something that is varied and is looking for innovators and people who want to make creative solutions.

It’s a great place to work. We have the great privilege of being able to see the visible impacts of the change that we make on communities. It is a really rewarding career for that because however difficult it is, you come to work every day with the objective of trying to make it a better place for the communities that we live and work in. 

I can’t imagine working a different career that didn’t have that opportunity because that’s what makes you get out of bed every morning, when you’ve got a tough challenge. It makes it a positive thing to do and you get to work with great people.