Bloody Standing Order 58(10)

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I realised all of this ...

As Council-watchers will know, the City of Edinburgh Council currently has an 'Executive-Scrutiny Process' (it's about to be changed without any consultation whatsoever, but I'm saying no more about that!) ... anyhow, under the Scrutiny process any 5-backbenchers (of which I am now obviously one) have the right to "call-in" a decision of the Executive. In essence, hold-up and properly scrutinise a decision before it is implemented. So far, so good.

Now last Thursday, to my slight annoyance, the new Council Executive met with the sole purpose of appointing the Leader, Deputy Leader and Executive Members so they can be treated as such and start attracting their respective salaries to their bank accounts.

All fair enough really, except that as well as there being an Executive Member for Culture and Leisure (Deirdre Brock) there is also to be a 'Festivals and Events Champion' (Steve Cardownie) ... why do we need these two posts; what's the rationale for this; perfectly valid questions for scrutiny I would say ...

... except we can't call-in the decision because of bloody Standing Order 58(10), which within a section on how to call decisions in, reads:


The "Call-in" Process ...

58. (10) This Standing Order does not apply to decisions to appoint or nominate a member of the Council to an outside body or other office.


... yes, you've guessed it; it's a relatively new Standing Order, instigated by the previous Administration (that included me!), a few weeks after Steve defected from Labour to the SNP so that we had no shenanigans around appointments when the Council was, briefly as it transpired, in a tight 29/29 split.

Oh ... poetic justice ;-((

Things can only get better ...