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Question Time - Highland Council 8th May

The question submitted by Inverness West Cllr Alex Graham asking when the City of Inverness Committee would be able to exercise its powers of scrutiny was provided with a response which totally failed to answer the question. Question and answer are below.

In a follow up question, The Provost stated that the information for the City Committee would be available by 30th June.

[Note that although the Council papers referred to the Convenor, it was actually the Provost of Inverness who replied.]

Questions to the Convener

The following Questions have been received by the Chief Executive in terms of Standing Order 42:–

(i) Mr Alex Graham

“With reference to the motion passed at Inverness City Committee on Monday, 4 February 2008 which stated that:

“The Administration was establishing the type of information and the method by which it could be reported to Wards which could be aggregated on a City wide basis for reporting to the City Committee in accordance with the Committee’s powers. The detail of the process for reporting the information both to Wards and the City Committee would be the subject of a further report to the next appropriate meeting of the City Committee” and noting that two subsequent meetings of the City Committee have been held without further report on this matter, please advise of the current position and when it is expected to provide the information concerned so that Inverness City Committee can discharge its responsibility to scrutinise service delivery in the City of Inverness in terms of Paragraph 2.2 of the Schedule of Powers delegated from the Highland Council.”

The Convener’s response to Alex Graham is circulated.

Mr Graham will be entitled to ask a supplementary question which will be answered by the Convener.

Item 8 - Questions to Convener
Response - to Mr Alex Graham
In response to your question –

The Corporate Manager (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey) is working with a group of Officers from each Council Service to prepare the information that can be reported at Ward level across all 22 Council Wards. Initially, this information was prepared for Ward 7 (Cromarty Firth) as reported by the Corporate Manager to the Inverness City Committee on 4 February 2008. The proposals for Ward reporting were also circulated to all 80 Elected Members via their own Ward Business Meetings.

As information across all 22 Wards was being collected and collated over the past few weeks, some changes have had to be made to the original material. This has resulted in improvements to the original both in the method of capturing the information and in its presentation. For example, taking the first suite of information on ‘Council Facilities’, this has been improved by adding information on staff numbers, unit costs and regulation and inspections to the original Property database held by the Housing and Property Service. This will stop any duplication in reporting of the information and make the system more efficient.

Meanwhile, the business of scrutinising service delivery continues to happen at Ward level, particularly through Ward Business Meetings. Service representatives are regularly invited along to discuss requirements and priorities for the Ward thus enabling Members to scrutinise what is going on in the Ward and to report back to their communities either through the Ward Forum or at Community Council meetings. The work to capture the information for Ward Reporting will be finalised shortly and will be presented to Members following completion.

The longest and most turbulent meeting of the Council since the elections in May 2007 was marked by the first major setbacks for the Independent/SNP administration.

• The Administration was defeated on two votes relating to the composition of the Political Arrangements Working Group, eventually resulting in a victory for Caithness councillors who wanted one of their number (Cllr Coghill) added to the Group following the removal of (expelled SNP) Cllr David Bremner
• A request received from the Scottish Independence Convention for the Council to consider a motion “to support a referendum on the political future of Scotland” was defeated. After lengthy debate the Council voted to move on to next business.
• By the narrowest of margins (37 votes to 36) it was resolved to keep Discretionary Ward Budgets at the same figure of £59,659 for all wards, a 5% increase on the previous year.
• The Council unanimously agreed to keep Roy Bridge School open, overturning a decision taken in December 2006 to close it. Financial projections used at that time have since been found to be flawed.

The consequences for the Administration remain unclear, but having broken ranks with impunity some Independents will be more likely do so again. The SNP seriously mis-judged the mood of their colleagues.

The Freedom of Ross & Cromarty was awarded to Hamish Menzies conductor of Dingwall Gaelic Choir for almost 35 years.

HRH The Prince Charles was awarded the Freedom of Caithness in recognition of his strong involvement with Caithness and the North Highlands.

In other business, the Council agreed to keep Roy Bridge Primary School open after figures used in the 1996 closure consultation were found to be wrong; £200,000 was put towards the final settlement of the capital costs of the Eden Court Theatre in what was held to be the last such request; and support an extension of the term of office of local councillors in order to de-couple Council and Scottish Parliament elections.