Month: February 2016

I have corrected a couple of typos in the original from February 2016 and can add the following. I have now met with a couple of the original care workers and, despite the Scottish Government’s best efforts to ensure these workers are paid a proper living wage, the evidence strongly suggests nothing has changed and… Continue reading The abuse of our care workers

I was clearing out paperwork today and I came across a few things that may be of interest. When I was asked to stand as a councillor in 2012, the big issue in Dunoon was the proposal to build an enormous super school in Kirn to house Dunoon, St Mun’s and Kirn primaries. The associated… Continue reading A memory jogger

I have had lots of people asking what was agreed last week and what was not. Given that the budget motion was only presented on the day, it wasn’t that simple to answer the questions posed so I asked strategic finance staff for a breakdown. The reply was helpful as expected and was as follows:… Continue reading Budget approved last week

The council administration set its budget yesterday, a very different budget to what had been predicted but still 82 staff will lose their jobs. Read The Buteman’s take on it here: http://www.buteman.co.uk/news/local-headlines/argyll-and-bute-council-s-2016-17-budget-the-details-1-4028292 The Reform Group budget got 3 votes, ie from the 3 members of our group so at least we didn’t break ranks !… Continue reading Council Budget

Today is the council budget day. After much work and professional help from strategic finance officers, we finally have a budget that’s been deemed competent. The amendment we will submit today is at the link below. reform group amendment 11 feb 16 The appendix, which gives more detail, is at the link below. reform group… Continue reading Budget Day

I had hoped to be able to let you see a final version of the budget earlier today but we still do not know if officers will accept that our budget  is competent. There have been a number of last minute queries/comments, some of which could have been asked/made 3 weeks ago. One of these was… Continue reading Reform Group Budget

Thursday this week sees the council meeting to set the budget for the coming year but also to try and get council agreement on other elements of the flawed Service Choices process for future years. The stakes could not be higher. The council administration putting forward these fundamentally unfair and damaging proposals are also the… Continue reading Argyll & Bute Budget Day 11 Feb.

Thanks to all of you who have commented on our budget proposals. We’ve been listening to the views expressed, most of which have come by email and don’t appear on the blog. We’re working on some tweaks to the budget at the moment bearing in mind what has been said and also based on comments… Continue reading Reform Group Budget