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Thursday, 08 February 2007 |
 Thursday's meeting of the Council was to set the budget for 2007/8 but first the Executive's decisions from last Friday were debated.
- Management Structure
Bailie Iris Gibson led for the SNP and criticised the proposal to have one director in charge of both Education & Social Work. She argued that this effectively downgraded both departments. The LibDems supported the SNP but the vote was lost by 55 votes to 8.
- Decision Making Structure
The SNP criticised the new committee system. Decisions may be made quicker but they are given less consideration beforehand. Labour has pushed this through to try and control the Council after the May election. This time the vote was lost by 58 to 8.
- Culture Company
Billy McAllister spoke against the proposed transfer of museums, libraries, and culture facilities to an independent company. There had been no public consultation and the public feared there would be entry charges in future for museums. This time the vote was lost by 58 to 6 (the LibDems got 2).
- Pawning the Car Parks
John Mason compared the transfer of the car parks to an outside body as effectively pawning them. The Council would get the cash up front but would have to pay over the odds for years to come. The vote was 59 to 6. On the main Budget debate the SNP opposed a number of cuts (full details here). In particular we opposed:
- cuts to the voluntary sector
- cuts to community facilities;
- reduced grass cutting in parks;
- £1.3 million in cuts to road repairs and lighting maintenance.
This showed the real effect of Labour's budget despite their denial of cuts in front line services. The SNP also proposed rolling out the West End's extra cleansing services across the City. In his speech John Mason pointed out the unacceptable gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" in the City. Some lived in beautiful penthouses on the Clyde and owned several cars while others lived in awful closes in Easterhouse and struggled to make ends meet on the minimum wage. He had thought Labour would want to address this gap but their budget was not doing so.
At the end of the budget debate Labour had 54 votes, the SNP amendment 5, and LibDems 2. |
