A taste of what's to come in Nairn on the evening 30th of June? Will Nairnites be sitting around at tables like a glorified French café? Trying to answer questions that even councillors perhaps don't fully understand. Remember Graham's statement to the River CC last week:
'...and yes I am a councillor but the fact is that I’m not a financier and I’m not deeply embedded in how the money is spent on a day-to-day basis so from that perspective if you would like somebody from Highland Council to come along to your next meeting and talk to you and actually respond to your questions and give you some of the kind of information that you are looking for’
Anyway Gurnites here's what one Highland citizen posted on the Council cuts blog this morning:
'A very well attended meeting on Monday night in Tain, although there was a feeling that the event was dominated by one issue, namely that of the potential closure of the swimming pool - even a trio of angelic schoolboys singing an appeal directly to the top table!. Good luck to that group though since the pool users had really got their act together and left councillors and officials in no doubt as to their desire to retain that facility. Perhaps the lesson to be learned for the rest of us in other sectors, is that no matter how noble the cause, unless you shout loudly you may end up the poorer for your inaction?
It was a noble exercise in democracy for the Council to then have us all sitting round tables trying to provide answers for various topics without us having sufficient background information - I left feeling as if the captain of the Titanic had come up to me and said "we've got a bit of a problem, any ideas?"
So who decides what is important - the danger is that we all become single issue groups and forget that it's all the parts that make the whole. From cradle to grave these are issues that makes society better and to loose but one makes us all the poorer.'
I think the man from Tain put it very well when he said:
ReplyDeleteIt was a noble exercise in democracy for the Council to then have us all sitting round tables trying to provide answers for various topics without us having sufficient background information - I left feeling as if the captain of the Titanic had come up to me and said "we've got a bit of a problem, any ideas?"
Another earlier contributor to Alston's cuts blog made an eloquent point when she said:
"It would have been preferable if, instead of a budget consultation exercise internally conducted,THC had chosen to commission an independent Audit to examine expenditure throughout the Council.That would not only have had the advantage of avoiding the risk of partiality and vested interests being taken into account but could also have used the opportunity to review top-down process,staffing structures,asset and revenue management etc.
As it is this exercise has been narrowly focused at the Service delivery point end of The Education, Culture and Sport Dept budget.If as is likely, in the very near future further cut backs will be required in Local Authority expenditure,it would make sense to conduct such an Audit sooner rather than later.
Closure of libraries,Community Centres and Swimming Pools and the withdrawal of funds from Museums and Heritage Centres should not even be an option.These facilities between them form the social,educational and cultural identity of the Highlands.They are the bridge between formal and informal sorces of education and recreation. Quite apart from that closure will probably adversely affect tourism. Despite the revamped street scapes in Dingwall and Inverness,not every tourist wants to go shopping and where else to go on a cold rainy day?
As has been very ably said in this blog,once these facilities are lost it will be very difficult if not impossible to replace them."
It will be good if these Ward Forum meetings are well attended. But it is hard to see how they can deliver a coherent, rational and comprehensive set of suggestions for budget savings.
As the man from Tain said, such meetings tend to reflect the preferences of those who shout loudest. It is also important to safeguard the interests of those who have no voice. That's part of what elected councillors are supposed to do (Graham Marsden please note).
I've been sort-of following this. What's the update on Cllr. Macdonald?
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