Month: November 2015

I am trying to establish alternatives to the current budget proposals so I have been looking at areas that are either out of scope for cuts or areas which appear to be relatively unaffected. My post of yesterday, 29 November, gave details of the cost of senior staff as a group. The education budget is… Continue reading How Argyll & Bute Works: Senior Education Posts

In an earlier post today (Sunday 29 November) I mentioned the cuts to the Additional Supports Need service in our schools. You may have worked out that the poorest paid staff are the ones losing their jobs. The average full time salary appears to be in the region of £13,500. You may be interested to… Continue reading How Argyll & Bute Works: Senior Staff Costs

There has been a lot of misreporting of what really happened about the cuts to the Additional Support Needs (ASN) at Thursday’s council meeting. As was widely expected, the council’s administration pulled the proposed 45% cut in ASN work from the Service Choices options. But, and this is the big but, they imposed an immediate… Continue reading How Argyll & Bute Works: The ASN cuts

In my last blog I told the story about Cllr Walsh paying for the hire of the Queen’s Hall, Dunoon, for Dunoon Community Council. The article is here: http://blog.breslin.scot/2015/11/16/how-cllr-dick-walsh-works/ I have subsequently been told by the secretary of the community council that my assertion that the meeting was an anti-wind farm meeting was inaccurate. I… Continue reading How Argyll & Bute Works: A New FOI

Yesterday, I posted a piece about the issue Cllr Marshall and I had over Cllr Walsh arranging to pay from council funds for the let of the Queen’s Hall in Dunoon, a let that was clearly one that should have been paid for by the party hiring the hall. At 1805 yesterday, 16th, I got… Continue reading How Cllr Walsh works, part 2

I’ve sat on this story for 6 months but the time is right to publish it now. Unfortunately I can only publish it in part,  as will be seen later, because the council’s monitoring officer has forbidden me to make public the report he produced on it. The story starts with Dunoon Community Council deciding… Continue reading How Cllr Dick Walsh Works

I am aware that some of the subjects I blog about may seem to be a bit repetitive to the reader but the sad fact is the same old repetitive nonsense keeps happening to me. Most will know my views on the budget cuts and the secretive Service Choices Project Board that was set up… Continue reading How Argyll & Bute Works: Budget Cuts Again

In a previous post I told you about the complaint made by Alan Stewart of South Cowal Community Development Company (SCCDC) over the way council officers handled the community buyout. That post can be read here. Others made similar complaints to Alan and each complaint made serious allegations against the 3 most senior council officers.… Continue reading How Argyll & Bute Works: complaints management

I have now had it confirmed to me by another councillor that the proposal to impose huge cuts to the Additional Support Needs service was always a ploy by Cllr Walsh’s administration. They would propose this, then withdraw it before Christmas to make them look like the good guys. This would also take eyes off… Continue reading How Argyll & Bute Works: The ASN cuts and the SNP position