Sanity prevails

A little bit of sanity prevailed in the City Chambers yesterday, and thankfully my earlier prediction was wrong :-)

Council Meeting went on until pretty close to 8pm, and the whole day was totally dominated by the Care and Support Services tender. I've rarely heard such powerful deputations from members of the public ...

... and, after the formal debate, it all led to the Labour/Green Joint Amendment (supported by the Conservatives) defeating the SNP/Lib-Dem Administration Motion by 29 votes to 28. One of the Lib-Dem Councillors declared a pecuniary interest (employed by one of the tenderer's) and left the Chamber.

The Administration now need to swallow a bit of political-pride and acknowledge (even privately, if not publicly) that they've got this whole process very badly wrong. As endless people yesterday said, this isn't a tender for electricity, water-supply or road-maintenance ... it's a tender for personal support services for the most vulnerable people in our city.

A bit of reflection on how those people have been treated over recent weeks, and a serious attempt to apply a bit more dignity to the whole process, could really make all the difference - and the Joint Amendment provides a short period of time to start to put that into practice.

We intend to work very hard over the next couple of weeks to ensure just that happens.