Argyll First – who have voluntarily taken a 10% pay cut, diverted to a trust fund for community benefit – have challenged the councillors joining THE ADMINSTRATION (for so the rag bag alliance of independents, LibDems and Tories is to be called) to do the same with the extra money they are now given for their new posts.
While their own behaviour has been exemplary, this Argyll First initiative is doomed to fail since the fable of greedy paws stuck in jars has been the motivating force of much that has gone on in the murky confines of Argyll and Bute Council in the past few weeks.
Argyll First is the only group of councillors to have been totally consistent on their stance regarding the school estate. The three councillors in the group refused to back the SNP’s original amendment. This proposed to remove 14 schools from the list of those threatened with closure, leaving the remainder to go to consultation. The group’s stance was that there could be no logic in arguing that flaws in the proposals were grounds for removing 14 schools but not adequate to removing them all – fundamental flaws being fundamental flaws.
The group will not support the use of flawed papers.
The Argyll First group is to meet with Argyll Rural Schools Network and with the Scottish Rural Schools Network team in the very near future and will continue to support all viable Rural Schools.
Councillors Dougie Philand, Donald Kelly and John McAlpine, in an effort to share some of the financial pain inflicted on communities in the public spending cuts, had suggested to the full Council earlier in the year that all should take a 10% cut in salary. The result? No action.
Following this, the three went ahead and did it on their own, setting up a trust fund to receive their contributions and to benefit the constituents of Argyll and Bute.
In response to a question on his reaction to this disclosure, Councilor Donald Macdonald, whose area responsibilities cover three threatened schools (Achaleven, Ardchattan and Barcaldine) and one inadequate receiving school whose parents are already anxious about mushrooming class sizes (Lochnell), had this to say:
‘This attachment describes the process by which the Consultant Keir Bloomer proposes Argyll & Bute Council Officers manipulate the School Closure Consultation meetings. It makes very interesting reading.
‘He makes a couple of suggestions in the Consultant Role section the first being ‘ I think Councillor involvement can be avoided.’ He follows this with saying ‘Using me can help to give the impression that the proposals are the outcome of an objective process’. This advice comes from someone who has no real knowledge or understanding of the problems which are faced by our rural communities in Argyll & Bute.
‘Every one of the 19 Councillors who voted for these School Closures to go out to Consultation should hang their head in shame. Surely there must be a few of the Independent Councillors who still retain some shred of decency and moral fibre? Surely they can`t all be comfortable supporting the rush for power and positions demonstrated by some of their right wing colleagues and by their new found allies in the Libs and the Tories?”
We fee that a particularly pertinent point here is the lack of local knowledge which Keir Bloomer has done little to address. (Perhaps the Council simply couldn’t afford to pay for his time to learn about Argyll – the place whose educational – and economic – future he was nevertheless happy to be ‘consulted’ about?)
It is this local knowledge that Mr Bloomer sees as being added by senior council staff to his own contributions at the public meetings to come.
(On a point of information, Councillor Donald Macdonald is one of tn SNP group who walked away from power on 25th November 2010, leaving the then ruling coalition in order to be free to vote AGAINST the school closure proposals going any further.)
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Not wanting to get too involved, but it would appear that out of all the political groupings, that ‘Argyll First’ actually had the most sensible proposals in the schools situation to date. More importantly it seems to be in line with what the general public are feeling at this time. They had the recognition that some schools could not be saved, or required to be saved, but that there were many whos names should never have been on the hit list in the first place.
More power to these 3 Argyll First councillors (on this one).
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