Don't blame us - we're only in charge

Local press are covering the Annual Residents Survey this afternoon - you can see the story here - and the local SNP/Lib-Dem Administration are clearly trying to pin the blame for some truly appalling 'satisfaction with the Council' statistics on the trams, and the trams alone.

... now, even long-term supporters of the project would accept that the ongoing construction of the route is hardly endearing the public to trams at the present moment - but to try and avoid all political responsibility for some shocking figures by blaming one project just won't wash.

Please do have a look at the figures in the report - second table on page 5 of Appendix 1 is truly shocking ... satisfaction rates with the Council have dropped by nearly 20% in just 2-years; and dissatisfaction rates have gone up by over 15%

But it's okay really - the trams are to blame, nothing else - and the following list of post-May 2007 policy successes has nothing whatsoever to do with the current appalling ratings for the City of Edinburgh Council:

• attempting to close 22 Schools and 4 Community Centres, immediately after new Administration took power in 2007
• attempting to ‘gag’ school deputations at Council Meetings during this process
• failing to establish a properly funded school building programme to aide any such school closure process
• increasing the cost of school meals by 10p – an inflation-busting 6% rise
• removing the hot meals service from 14 of the 18 Council Nursery Schools in the city
• removing kitchen staff (and hot-food preparation) from 6 Primary Schools in the city
• removing the offer of a hot meal on a Friday lunchtime from all Secondary Schools in the city
• thus all (obviously!) damaging the uptake of healthy and nutritious school meals across Edinburgh
• cutting devolved school budgets by 1.5% in their first budget – some £870,000 removed from schools
• cutting £966,000 from the ‘SureStart’ programme in their first budget
• signed a Single Outcome Agreement, thus accepting the Council should deliver SNP Government manifesto commitments with no additional resources being provided to do so
• have thus failed to reduce class sizes significantly
• have thus failed to commission any new school buildings
• have thus failed to increase Nursery hours provision significantly
• closed down several Community Newspapers across the capital, which were locally popular and key sources of community information
• have closed down a raft of successful local community projects – latest example being ‘Instep’ at Castlebrae Community High School
• totally mismanaged the Fairer Scotland Fund implementation, particularly in the North of Edinburgh
• re-introduced old desks and chairs to Council meetings at a cost of over £112,000 – nearly £2,000 for each Councillors desk and chair
• spending over £1,600 on introducing ‘traffic-lights’ into the Council Chamber to help the Lord Provost do his job
• trying to spend £1.3million on ‘ceremonial flags’ for the city
• trying to introduce ‘ceremonial robes’ back into the Council, indicating it would distinguish elected Members from the ‘Hoi Polloi’

... and we're not even half-way through the current Council term yet :-((