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Monday, 29 January 2007 |
 Labour’s plan to transfer museums and other culture and leisure assets to a trust have been widely criticised this week. It seems Steven Purcell and the Labour leadership are determined to run down the Council before the May elections. This very much follows the English model of hiving off public services. Presumably doing this will keep Cllr Purcell in the good books of Tony Blair and New Labour in general.
The SNP has a number of questions about this:
- Why no public consultation? Are the public’s wishes to be ignored even though the facilities really belong to them?
- Why the rush to make a decision immediately before an election?
- Will the new trust be approved as a charity by the regulator?
- Will the Scottish Executive not notice they are getting £5.5 million less of rates income?
- If they do notice, will they penalise Glasgow in other ways?
- Will charity and other laws be changed in future making any advantage short lived?
- Despite all that is wrong with the Council, would the public not prefer councillors to manage public assets like museums? (At least they can sack the councillors every 4 years; they won’t be able to sack the new trustees.)
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