The Scottish Government's Economic Strategy identifies in-migration as an important means of growing the population and thereby counteracting the country’s demographic challenges and stimulating economic growth. COSLA agrees that migration can not only boost the working age population, but it also helps to fill skills gaps, contributes to the economy and enhances cultural diversity.
Although the latest population projections suggest that Scotland’s population is to continue increasing for the foreseeable future, there are still significant demographic challenges associated with a growing elderly population and a working age population that is shrinking as a proportion of the population as a whole. Allied to this are significant disparities in how the population is constituted in different council areas. At the same time, councils can also face a variety of challenges associated with in-migration, whether they are struggling to attract migrants or are seeing significant numbers arriving within their boundaries.
With this in mind the Migration Policy Toolkit was developed to provide local authorities with a strategic and outcomes focused approach to tackling Scotland’s demographic challenges through migration, helping to develop a strategy to either grow or maintain their populations.
There are three key aspects to the Toolkit. It will:
It covers a breadth of policy areas under the headings of: growing the population; employment; education (adult and children); community cohesion and integration; health and social care; housing; and humanitarian programmes as well as providing information on how each policy area can be incorporated into the Scottish Government’s National Performance Framework.
CSMP has successfully secured funding from the Scottish Government to support local authorities in implementing the Policy Toolkit and to evaluate its outcomes. The CSMP Team would be happy to discuss ways in which we can support councils in this regard. Our contact details can be found by clicking on the ‘About’ tab, above.