As Councillors, we seek election to Comhairle to improve standards, bring work and implement changes to governance which facilitate constituents to work, invest their time, money and effort to create prosperity and generate incomes for their families. A help up, not a handout and this needs competent budgeting.
Comhairle is legally required to set a balanced competent budget for the next financial year with items given a portion of finance otherwise the Budget is not competent. One councillor wanted to delay the Budget Setting for a few months to see where we were. He was indulged and the work to set the Comhairle Budget continued.
The SNP Comhairle Group tabled three amendments to the Budget which applied across the whole of the Comhairle area, to devolve benefit to all Islands and all constituents. These amendments are legally correct, administratively competent and financially prudent.
Donald Manford and JohnA tabled an amendment directing money to road surfacing from savings on money previously committed by Comhairle to the Bernera Bridge replacement. Funding for the Bernera Bridge is now being provided by the SNP Scottish Government. The amendment sought reinstatement of the historic 60:40 portioning to Lewis and Harris: Uist and Barra. This amendment was rejected 23:8.
Rae Mac Kenzie and John Mitchell tabled an amendment to provision Winter Gritting by two hundred and fifty thousand pounds from Balances to avoid the annual overspend currently projected for this year at nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. This amendment was rejected 19:12.
Gordon Murray and I tabled an amendment in five parts. Directing money previously committed for Bernera Bridge to surfacing unadopted roads (60:40), an all-weather play area at Stornoway Primary to replace the all-mud play area, a dental chair for the dental facility in Daliburgh currently missing the dental chair, concessionary fares on inter-island ferries and support for abattoirs in North Uist and Barra as support for the Stornoway Abattoir was included separately. This amendment was rejected 19:12.
The failure of Councillors to support this amendment has caused controversy with some Councillors stating that they couldn’t support the Stornoway Primary as other areas and islands would also benefit.
The amendment would have allowed work to start at Stornoway Primary with immediacy and hopefully be finished by June 2021. The option voted for, requires a report to committee in June ‘with a view to securing finance’ yet this is being touted as being the better option.
The Comhairle Budget requires to be financially competent with each budgetary item being given a spend limit. We are now told that there is no upper spent limit on this financial revenue item which would make the Comhairle Budget financially non-competent. Comhairle voted through a non-competent budget as there is neither financial provision nor spending limit on what can be expended on the improvements to replace the current all-mud play area at Stornoway Primary.
When I am then told the Council Leader said ‘...’ I simply reply ‘remember what the Council Leader said to Calum Mac Lean at the Comhairle called to consider RSHP. We voted on the issue per his precise words, yet then recall, we were told that the writing on the paper is what counted’. The words on the papers to Budget Setting Comhairle state ‘that a Report be submitted to the June 2021 series of meetings with a view to securing finance’. A ‘Report be submitted ... with a view to securing finance’ must therefore now be the starting point when considering how the all-mud play area is being progressed.
This can be compared with Gordon Murray’s amendment which had proper financial provision and a real time as soon as possible start date. The fact that a decision to not start work but to get a Report to committee is being hailed as the better option shows a lack of empathy with the parents who send their children to school where they play in the mud and with the children who have to play in the mud.
As to the dental chair provision in Daliburgh Cllr Roddie MacKay stated ‘that ship has sailed’ which encapsulated the attitudes and perceptions that we must set out to change and replace with community empowerment and community embedded facilities. The Scottish Government’s OHIP sets out the aspiration to continue Childsmile in the community and the complimentary role of the Public Dental Service in providing domiciliary care for our ageing population.
Work continues to deliver all the proposals in these amendments. Every opportunity to provision road surfacing, winter gritting, replacing the all-mud play area at Stornoway Primary, providing a dental chair in the dental facility in Daliburgh, concessionary ferry fares and supporting all abattoirs across the islands to promote a croft to customer product, continues.
Yous sincerely,
Calum Mac Millann
SNP Councillor,
Uidhist aghus Barraidh.
