A new land and environment committee will be set up, de-centralisation measures will be introduced, and the programme of the administration agreed in 2007 between SNP and Independents will be reviewed.

Independent Sandy Park will remain as Convenor of the Council with Lib Dems Michael Foxley coming in as Leader of the Administration and David Alston in charge of Council budgets. Independent convenors of four main strategic committees [ Housing & Social Work, Transport, Environment & Community Services, Resources and Gaelic] will remain in post, with Liberal Democrat nominees taking the vice-convenorships except Transport, Environment & Community Services Committee where Lochaber Labour councillor Brian Murphy will become vice-chair. His Inverness Labour colleague Jimmy Gray will be proposed as Provost of Inverness at the next meeting of the Inverness City Committee.

The opposition will comprise SNP and Non-aligned councillors.

The council membership of 80 currently comprises:

Independents - 30
Liberal Democrats - 20
Labour - 7

SNP - 17
Non-aligned members - 6

While formal agreement has not yet been reached, hopes are high that the more broadly-based adminsitration will be agreed soon. The Council is currently in recess and the next cycle of meetings is scheduled to start in early August, by which time arrangements will require to be in place.

Meantime, allegiences continue to shift, with the number of  Non-aligned councillors rising to five or possibly even six, mainly at the expense of the Independent group. As at 4th July the Council composition was as follows:

Independent 31 (or possibly 30)
Liberal Democrat  20
SNP 17
Labour 7
Non-aligned 5 (or possibly 6)

Total number of councillors = 80

“On the road again
Just can’t wait to get on the road again”

Route 66? No. In this case just a bit more prosaic. Liberal Democrat MP Danny Alexander and 5 councillors took time out on Friday 27th June to press again the case for the Trunk Link Route Inverness By-pass — pressure which is required as the Scottish Government moves towards its day of decision in August.

It was encouraging to see councillors from the five wards most affected (Hamish Wood: Aird and Loch Ness; Alex Graham: Inverness West; Thomas Prag: Inverness South; David Henderson: Inverness Ness-side, Janet Campbell: Inverness Central) turn out for this. The TLR will pass through three of their wards (South, Ness Side and West) and have a major effect on life in the others.

Danny Alexander has been absolutely solid in his support for the TLR, and deserves credit for the time he has given to it.

The message for Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson, who refused when he was in town this week to confirm a key SNP election pledge to fund the TLR project before 2012, could have come from another Willie Nelson song:

“If you’ve got the money, we’ll take the TLR”.

The movement of councillors, mainly Independents,  towards Non-aligned also began to gather pace.

Notable items on this day:

• Single Outcome Agreement which is to be submitted to the Scottish Government by the end of June 2008 was approved;
• An indicative capital programme was approved which will now go to the various service committees in the August cycle of meetings;
• As part of a process for monitoring attendance by members appointed to outside bodies, a list of these appointments will be placed on the Council website;
• Support was given to a proposal for a Polish consulate in Inverness

A paper on Play Development  attracted significant member comment comment, including claims by Inverness West representative Alex Graham and others that play areas had suffered serious neglect for a long period.

Black Isle Independent councillor Isobel McCallum has resigned as Vice-Chair of the Planning, Environment and Development committee after questioning whether SNP member Pauline Munro (Inverness West) should be the Council’s agriculture spokesperson.

Indicative of the stresses of recent events, doubts have emerged over who leads the Independent group, with press reports suggesting that both Cllr McCallum and Convenor Cllr Sandy Park made claims to the leadership.

Intensive discussions with the various groups and between them will occur in the next few days, but the Council meeting scheduled for Thursday 26th June will be held as planned.

Posted: 21 June 2008

Charleston Academy are returning to Eden Court, this time with the musical Wizard of Oz based on L. Frank Baum’s children’s novel. It tells the story of a resourceful American girl who is snatched up by a Kansas tornado and deposited in a fantastic land of witches, a talking scarecrow, a tin man, a cowardly lion and more. She find that what she was looking for was in her own backyard all the time, reminding us all that “There’s no place like home”.

Seat prices £12.00
Under 18s £8.00
Family £32.00

Areas affected included almost the whole of Inverness West ward — except Scorguie and some small areas such as Clachnaharry village, the Leachkin and the Dunain area — as well as Dalneigh, the town centre, the Crown area, Longman industrial estate, and Lochardil. Postcodes IV2 and IV3 were affected, with press reports (P&J) putting the number affected at 19,000.

This was the third time in just over three years that Kinmylies had experienced an outage. Previous occasions were in January 2005, with Scorguie also affected, and November 2006 when 500 homes in Kinmylies were cut off.

Alex Graham has asked Scottish Water for a report on what caused Sunday’s interruption and what steps are being taken to prevent a recurrence, and he will also be discussing the matter with Highland Council.

Footnote: Monday 16th June Scottish Water website notes “reports of loss water supply and low pressure from the IV12 postcode area of Nairn.” Could be spreading!

Every time I visit I am greatly impressed by the size of the Park, which comprises about four acres of green space right in the town centre, and also growing more aware of the users and its importance to the community. The fact that it is being considered for building, even for a Museum and Art Gallery, is a scandal.

Apart from cricket, the three local schools who lack playing fields — St. Joseph’s, Bishop Eden, and Central — all use it during the week and for their sports days. It is also used for the Marymas fair and maybe the Tattoo could return there.

It has been atrociously maintained by Highland Council with only minimal maintenance, and suffers periodic vandalism from intruders after hours.

Saving it from being destroyed for a Museum we don’t actually need is essential, and I was glad to see Fields in Trust (formerly National Playing Fields Association) members in action in Eastgate recently collecting signatures for a petition against building on the Park

The Plan includes:

• Playing a leading role in the development of pre-school, primary and secondary Gaelic education.
• Allowing greater public access to Council services in Gaelic.
• Raising the profile of the language by using it alongside English on signage and literature.
• Gaelic tuition opportunities for Council employees.
• Assessing the impact on Gaelic of all new developments within the Council’s sphere of influence.

Gaelic Committee Chairman Councillor Hamish Fraser said the Plan will focus the Council’s commitment to Gaelic and oversee policy and planning for Gaelic throughout all Council services.

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.