THE Scottish Parliament’s summer recess affords MSPs more time to catch up on constituency matters, including visiting local organisations, businesses and charities.

One very welcome recent visit was to The Haven, based at The Fraser Centre in Tranent. Run by the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity, this pilot wellbeing and resilience service is open to families living within the catchment area of Ross High School and/or registered with Tranent Medical Practice.

It provides support and assistance to help families through the challenges that having a child who struggles with their mental health can bring. Any family who has a child with a mental health concern is welcome, and the service is there for all members of the family.

The service’s value and impact were recognised in the Courier’s recent Community Champion Awards, where it was nominated in two categories and won the Charity Champion Award. That is a brilliant achievement for a service that has only been running for around a year. It is clearly making a real difference to the lives of local families and I hope it will be able to continue its work.

Elsewhere, the potential of strike action by waste workers here in East Lothian is now looming large after unions rejected COSLA’s pay offer. Frontline workers deserve fair pay and people here in East Lothian and across Scotland deserve clean streets. The root cause of this problem lies with the SNP Government’s brutal cuts to local council budgets. The year-on-year budget cuts handed down by Government to councils created this mess and it should be the Government’s responsibility to fix it.

SNP Ministers must now demonstrate leadership by getting round the table with COSLA and the trade unions to agree a fair deal for workers and prevent a summer of strike chaos and misery.