Policy and Strategy Committee

Policy and Strategy Committee this morning - agenda can be found here.

You'll see at Item 5, I had a motion tabled on the implementation of the Fairer Scotland Fund (FSF) in the Forth Ward ... I posted about this very issue quite recently and continue to be astounded at the lack of any political willingness to accept that the transition to FSF funding in North Edinburgh has been disastrously implemented :-(

... no where else in the City is having these problems - that's not to say everything is sweetness and light, far from it - but at least the transition has been far better managed. I'm certain that after the powerful deputations that accompanied this motion today, even those in power must know privately that something has gone badly wrong in North Edinburgh with the FSF.

BUT - stubbornness, and politics probably, prevented any compromise on my motion which was defeated by an amendment saying all was fine.

The whole topic now goes up to Full Council on the 18th December ... if the current Lib-Dem/SNP Council Administration backed-down on this, I'd applaud their good common sense in realising that this part of North Edinburgh needs much more 'transitional' assistance.

I'm not holding my breath.

The other main topic, of more limited discussion, was the report at Item 10 on the agenda ... you can see it here. I've already mentioned the positive press coverage of this report, and indeed my ongoing worries about the accuracy of street-cleanliness measurement!

Anyhow, it does need to be mentioned that this report actually covers three years of positive progress across a variety of service delivery areas of the Council ... 2005/06, 2006/07 and 2007/08.

... you know what's coming next - of course, Labour were in control during those first two years, but we also set the budget for the third year. That budget was set in February 2007 and ran through until April 2008, with the Libs/Nats being in charge from May 2007 obviously.

Remember all that Lib/Nat blind-panic over the budget they inherited, yet somehow they now seem delighted with the performance improvement that it was the foundation of?

They need to read Aesop's fables ... especially that one about the wolf.