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Shetland Councillors


ThePMx
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Anyhow....

 

The Councillors get to be the whipping boys, but as Ian Scott said, the political power is with the officials, who take their orders from Holyrood more than they take them from the Councillors. As long as that remains the situation, there's going to be no sense done at the Hillhead.

 

Regardless how any individual Councillor may or may not perform, the whole Council is guilty of historically letting that power shift and removal of democracy happen, and of not addressing and redressing it in the present.

 

Unfortunately those newbies who are aware of the probem with the status quo, or who could be brought on side, have one hell of a job if they are to fight it and make progress with 'fresh ideas' especially when they're vastly outnumbered by the portion of the old(er) guard who were returned that support things continuing as they are, plus the few newbies who support them, all backed up by the Council management, who in turn have the full weight of Holyrood behind them.

 

Whats needed is a majority on the Council who call their management out then rein them in to where they belong, and we don't have that yet. Its a cushy number for all but the Shetland public just to leave it well alone as is, Holyrood gives the orders, management relays them to the Councillors and convince them they have to rubber stamp approval for whats in front of them. No hassle, no fuss, and minimal work all round.

 

It needs put back to the way it was 30 years ago, Holyrood orders to be for guidance only, and not the Holy Grail which cannot be questioned or altered in any size shape or form. That guidance relayed to Councillors wholly impartially at the earliest opportunity for them to debate and fight over to decide how they implemented it, and management taking orders from ONLY Councilors, and providing them with the comprehensive and entirely impartial information they need to debate issues fully and hopefully reach a reasonably sensible outcome.

 

Past Councils have allowed the continual erosion of decision making and consequently democracy from elected members to hired staff, and its going to be one hell of a lot harder fight to get it back in to the hands of the democratically elected than it was for them to pass it out of their hands. It'll only happen when enough folk catch on to what is going on, things like the kind of house you're allowed or not allowed to build, or what god awful looking monstrosity of an 'erection' appears someplace, isn't decided by anyone in Shetland, its decided by an unelected, unaccountable, unknown 'manager' in an office in Edinburgh, and for the majority Councillors are as unaware what been planned and approved as anyone else. It was signed off by another 'manager' in Planning if it ticked all the boxes the guy in Edinburgh said it should.

 

Once folk catch on that all Council decisions are made roughly on the same basis as the above, and that the worst carbunkles, monstrosities and downright useless pea brained schemes and decisions foisted upon Shetland in recent years either never saw a Councillor, or at best only hit their desks at a time, with work already done on them, and with a timeline that attempting to stop it was going to create an even bigger disaster than letting it happen. Then they might start making sure that preferably all, but at least the greater majority of folk voted in see the problem and are committed to doing something about it. Progress was made last year, but not enough to get quick or easy results, so we're still where we are, maybe next time will build upon it.

 

Regardless, the biggest problem is going to be finding folk willing to stand, who realise and appreciate that neither Holyrood nor the Council's managerial team are the Council's friend, but at best are their adversary in all they do, and at worst their arch enemy, and are up for seeing and raising both, possibly numerous times, to wrest the power and control back to where it belongs - at the Council table.

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In the spirit of balance, having travelled extensively around the country can I suggest that relative to the rest of the UK we enjoy a very high level of service from our council be it roads, leisure facilities, care for our elderly and disabled, schools, nurseries, libraries, museums etc etc thats just of the top of my head, if we got together like that Monty Python sketch and did a "what did the Romans ever do for us" type thing we could probably come up with a dozen more.

Agreed, but the trouble is that is a very expensive "high maintenance model".  Personally, I believe that it is not sustainable in the long term unless we can get some councillors with the "nadgers" to stand up and fight.

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Wasn't they all 'Pro Tunnel' folk ?

So, they must have been busy sorting that out then...

I'm reminded meanwhile in the US, last year some Elon guy started a tunnel company, got boring and this year is finishing off a 2 mile tunnel.

 

So it's not like its impossible to do these kind of things in a reasonable time-frame . . .

Edited by Nigel Bridgman-Elliot
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In the spirit of balance, having travelled extensively around the country can I suggest that relative to the rest of the UK we enjoy a very high level of service from our council be it roads, leisure facilities, care for our elderly and disabled, schools, nurseries, libraries, museums etc etc thats just of the top of my head, if we got together like that Monty Python sketch and did a "what did the Romans ever do for us" type thing we could probably come up with a dozen more.

 

We do, but at a cost of more than £85.00 per day, every day, for every resident from the cradle to the grave.

 

Aside from the fact that there must be a few out there somewhere lapping up far more than their share, considering how many folk don't use anywhere near their own share. It seems very wasteful to be spending that, when we could get some much more for the same money, or get exactly the same for less if the folk delivering it even had the competence to deliver on a pith up in a brewery.

 

A high level of service at any cost is not in anyone's interest.

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We do, but at a cost of more than £85.00 per day, every day, for every resident from the cradle to the grave.

 

 

I wonder how that figure compares with the spend of other local authorities ?

 

It's negligible in comparison with Fife, the Highlands, Aberdeenshire or West Lothian. When you consider Edinburgh or Glasgow, it's not even sweety money.

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According to the graph on page 12 of this we have the highest spend per head of population of all councils in Scotland:

 

http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/uploads/docs/report/2017/nr_171128_local_government_finance.pdf

 

Whether that’s reasonable might be open to argument either way. We have internal ferries to run, most don’t. Other councils have to fund their own leisure centres and swimming pools, the SRT run them here. Some councils will argue they need to spend more because of higher levels of deprivation. It’s always going to cost more to deliver some services in rural areas than urban areas etc.

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Almost £4000 per head of population is near enough £10 per person per day (22k population). Where does the £85 figure come from?

Interesting graph though. It seems it costs twice as much per head to run council services in Shetland than in say Aberdeen, however the cost to the individual seems to be no more in Shetland than Aberdeen in terms of council tax. Most of the difference being made up by general revenue grant. 

Edited by Space
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Out of interest, It is probably not so well known the Councillor for South Mainland has another job which appears to conflict with being a councillor. When not councilling (or whatever) he is a private investigator. it seems to me he cannot in all honesty claim to be looking after the interests of the  people of South Mainland while at the same time gathering evidence against them.

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Almost £4000 per head of population is near enough £10 per person per day (22k population). Where does the £85 figure come from?

 

Yup, apologies. That's a typo on my part. The £85.00 should read per head, per week, not day.

 

SIC budget annual budget spend of £108 Million (SIC figures), rounded down to £104 Million to give a weekly spend of £ 2 Million, divided by 23,000 folk (rounded down from 2011 Census figure of 23,167) = £86.96. Divide by 7 for the daily per head spend of £12.42.

 

I still believe my point stands though, that there must be a hell of a ot of folk out there sucking up far more than their share, considering how many aren't costing the SIC anywhere near that amount.

 

It also doesn't change the fact that the SIC admit the spend per head in Shetland is something in the region of 40% higher than the Scot's Government calculate the minimum per head Council spend in Scotland shoud be. Yes, things are more expensive to deliver here than in more densely populated areas which accounts for some of that, but at approx 40% we shoud be enjoying a vastly superior service to anyplace only spending at or close to the Govt's minimum, we're not, which means we're not getting value for money.

 

Level of spend in and of itself is largely irrelevant, what matters is what is provided as a result of that spend.

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Out of interest, It is probably not so well known the Councillor for South Mainland has another job which appears to conflict with being a councillor. When not councilling (or whatever) he is a private investigator. it seems to me he cannot in all honesty claim to be looking after the interests of the  people of South Mainland while at the same time gathering evidence against them.

 

This woudn't happen to be the same individual who prior to being first elected was employed as a part time Sheriff's Officer, would it?

 

A position they, as best as I recall, publically announced that if elected, they would resign from, and apparently did, for a time at least. Then apparently very quietly went back and resumed the Sheriff's Officer position part way through their elected term. And when putting themselves up for re-election, as far as I'm aware, failed to inform the electorate of any of that.

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Out of interest, It is probably not so well known the Councillor for South Mainland has another job which appears to conflict with being a councillor. When not councilling (or whatever) he is a private investigator. it seems to me he cannot in all honesty claim to be looking after the interests of the  people of South Mainland while at the same time gathering evidence against them.

 

Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.  He is not a 'private investigator' plotting or gathering evidence against anyone.  He is a debt collector, that's all.  (oh - and a Councillor).

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