Assessing the social and community risks of council spending cuts in Scotland

Local councils in Scotland continue to face severe challenges and hard choices in reducing expenditure on services in line with UK public spending cuts. Cuts can have short-term financial benefits but negative impacts may take longer to be revealed. This paper:

• explores how councils in Scotland can adequately consider social and community risks when making austerity cuts to services;
• identifies barriers to better risk assessment and how to overcome these;
• considers opportunities to promote impact assessment through new policies on joint working in health and social care, and community planning partnerships.