Glum Councillors

Esther has just pointed me in the direction of this blog: http://glumcouncillors.tumblr.com/

I know I've posted some grimly boring pictures of bits of road in the past, and I feel I should apologise if these made you lose the will to live. I tend not to feature in the photos as I don't drag someone around with me to take the picture! My husband suggests I'm a bit tragic... he may well be right!

Payback time?

I'm absolutely astounded at the news that MPs have paid back nearly half a million pounds, for expenses they shouldn't have claimed. That's even MPs, that's 182 of them.

According to the BBC:

The figures published by the Commons Members Estimate Committee on Thursday also reveal that Barbara Follett - the tourism minister - has repaid £32,976.

It is one of the largest single sums repaid by any MP - the largest is £41,709 by care services minister Phil Hope, who had already publicised the fact he was repaying it in the light of constituents' anger.

Ms Follett, married to best selling author Ken Follett, had defended claiming £25, 411 for security patrols at her London home after she was mugged, saying it was within the rules.

The figures also show for the first time, that cabinet minister Douglas Alexander has repaid more than £12,000.

My own expenses in the Council for last year totalled £1,058.50. I have just enough money in the bank to pay that back if I had to. I can't get my head around people signing over cheques for thousands of pounds as if they were paying for their weekly messages. Is this what real, grown ups can do in their life? Or is it just certain MPs who have been creaming off money from the state for all these years?

My expenses in the Council were for telephone bills - £310.58 for the year - and an annual zonecard - £748.00. I was given the option of a zonecard or a parking space in the City Chambers. I don't think it's fair that while other workers have to pay a premium for city centre parking, we get it for nothing. I also haven't claimed for mileage or taxis.

So you can get a bit of a comparison, I've listed my expenses alongside my ward colleagues.

NAME	Simpson, Ruth*	Redmond, George**	Thewliss, Alison
SALARY	£28,131.02	£28,626.83	£15,797.52
TRAVEL	£2,909.30	£645.83	£748.00
SUBSISTENCE	£1,252.86	£0.00	£0.00
TELEPHONE & ICT	£505.91	£514.88	£310.58
OTHER	£13.00	£0.00	£0.00
TOTAL EXPENSES	£4,681.07	£1,160.71	£1,058.58
TOTAL	£32,812.09	£29,787.54	£16,856.10

*Executive Member for Land & Environment/Councillor (wef March 2009)
**Planning Committee Convenor/Executive Member for Health & Wellbeing (wef March 2009)

PS - sorry, no idea why that's jumped down the page. Thought I was doing well Html-ing myself a table!

Thrills and Spills at the Calton Fun Day

I attended the Calton Fun Day on Saturday, organised by the Calton Area Association. There was a great turnout of local people and agencies, and fun for everyone - plants, food, face painting, dancing, massages, and even a bucking bronco!

The day brought the community together for some fun, but also involved people in a Planning for Real exercise. This allowed people to put markers in a 3D map of the Calton area to show where there are issues and problems. Once people got the concept, it really seemed to take off, and coloured markers were getting planted all over! The issues will be gathered together, analysed, and I hope real change and improvements will follow.


Huge credit must go the the Committee of the Area Association, who put a massive amount of work into making the Fun Day happen. They pulled off something quite special.

If you're a teenage mum, who can you ask for help?

I would guess, if you're a teenage mum living in Glasgow South, Tom Harris MP is certainly not who you're going to go to for a sympathetic listening ear. The outburst on his blog has attracted a lot of media interest from across the left, right and religious spectrum.

I wouldn't deny that there's a problem in society when young teenagers find themselves having sex and young girls end up pregnant. Dealing with unexpected and unwanted pregnancy isn't a situation any of us would want to find ourselves in. Whatever choice teenage mums have to make, that choice is never going to be easy, and they will live with the consequences of that decision for the rest of their lives. If there is no commitment from their partner, or support from their parents, that decision has to be made alone.

Tom Harris is a male, married, middle aged, middle class, educated and well paid Member of Parliament (incidentally, with sons rather than daughters). In his blog post, he almost manages to put himself in the position of the father of a teenage mother. Almost. The father may well be hopping mad, in denial, disappointed, and fearful, but what good would showing that do to his daughter? They've probably had that fight already. Summoning pride and hope in support of a daughter who may well be terrified herself is surely better than arguments and recriminations; once the baby has been born, that moment has long past.

I wonder if he has tried to put himself in the postion of the daughter. Fear. Panic. Worry. Hope. The coming realisation that no matter what they do, they are now tied to live with the child they brought into the world. Education, work, relationships are all bundled up into that.

I've heard from friends that recently had children - married people, as it happens - about how challenging the whole parenting thing is. How much harder must that be on your own?

There are education programmes being developed to give young people a better chance of understanding their bodies, and learning the self esteem to be able to make decisions in their own best interests. I hope that Sexual Health and Relationship Education (SHARE) will make the difference to the generations growing up today. Parents are intended to be part of this education, and they need to feel able to encourage their children in a positive way.

I hinted at the difference between attitudes to boys and girls by their parents earlier. There are very different attitudes to sex and relationships by gender, and this needs to be tackled as part of young people's development. Put simply, girls don't get pregnant on their own.

For those who have had their babies, we need to assist where we can. Offer childcare places and routes into training and employment. Offer parenting classes where they are needed, or just finding ways to lend a hand. There are ways of preventing or breaking the benefits cycle and these are better to be carrots rather than sticks.

The teenage mums who have visited my surgeries aren't looking for handouts. They're looking for the best start they can give their children, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. If that happens to be a warm, secure home, then fine. It's a start, and when their home life is on track, I believe other things will eventually follow.

It's not my job to judge the people who ask for my assistance - as an elected representative it's my job to do my best for each and every one of my constituents. With his moralising patronising tone, Tom Harris risks alienating the constituents who need him most.

Recycling in the East

It was chilly yesterday, but there was a great turnout of press, local school pupils, and a few politicians for the opening of the new state of the art recycling centre at Tesco Shettleston, the first automated recycling centre in Scotland. The pupils were from the Eco-Committee at Wellshot Primary, with one pupil having designed a great poster which graces the outside of the recycling machine.

The centre is a bold statement, and represents a considerable investment by Tesco of £150,000. The automated recycling machine designed by Tomra of Norway crushes and granulates materials on site, reducing the number of times it has to be emptied by lorry, and improving efficiency in recycling.

A wider range of items can be recycled on site than before - glass bottles and jars, steel and aluminium food and drink cans, plastic bottles (such as milk containers and soft drink/ water bottles), yoghurt pots and plastic food trays. Being Tesco, you even get Clubcard points for what you recycle!

The Scottish Government's recycling targets are ambitious, and Glasgow has had a historically poor record of recycling. I know staff in Land and Environmental Services are keen to improve, and much is being done. Assistance from business is important in the bigger picture to reduce waste and improve our recycling performance; as they say, every little helps...

Busy busy Friday

If the rest of the week was busy, Friday was manic.

At 10am, I attended the latest announcement of money in the CashBack for Communities at the East End Healthy Living Centre in my ward.

This scheme takes money from the proceeds of crime and returns it, in this case through rugby, to keep young people out of trouble.

This latest phase of the scheme will:

"..use over £1.4 million seized from serious organised criminals to provide free rugby coaching and playing activities for over 32,000 young people throughout the country by 2011.

The Scottish Government has brokered agreement with Scottish Rugby (the SRU) to deliver a comprehensive three year programme across Scotland to encourage participation by young people in rugby."

I'll be asking the SRU what money is heading to Glasgow, and I hope it will be possible for some to come to my ward.

The unexpected surprise from the announcement for me was the presence of several rugby players, and the very beautiful Calcutta Cup. Not sure if it was the real one or the replica, but I felt lucky to get to stand near it - I say stand near, because there was no way I would have been allowed to touch it! The Cup is pretty fragile partly due to age and some shenanigans on Princes Street.

After the brief brush with sporting glamour, it was back to the reality of Council with the fortnightly Executive Committee. My mum and my cousin had come to sit in, and there was certainly plenty to hear, including A response to the Scottish Government consultation on elected health boards and the Scottish Climate Change bill, papers on the future of LES trading operations and Direct and Care Services, and a paper on the funding of Area Committees.

After lunch, we went to finally put down a deposit on the wedding venue and to look at shoes and tiaras. It's been tricky to get a date when we could all get together, so it was nice to finally start looking at putting the wedding together. It's pretty weird to have it going from a far-off concept to realising that (according to my bebo countdown clock) we get married in a hundred and eight days!

I couldn't look round the shops for long, as I had to rush off to Edinburgh to catch the end of the SNP Councillors conference. It seems to have been a very useful event, with lots of workshops. We're all so busy getting on with being Councillors, it's not really been possible to catch up with what's been going on in other groups across the country. It was also good to geek out with a different set of people purely about our different experiences and swap stories and tips. It was a good kick-off for Spring Conference too, more of which later.

Honesty will put people off

I'll admit to a bit of a sigh of exasperation when I read this article on the BBC website, which reports on the claim that having to publish expenses claims will put people off entering politics;

Greater transparency over MPs' expenses could put people off standing for Parliament, Commons authorities say.


Resources boss Andrew Walker said rent, phone, food and other bills could offer a "peephole" on MPs' private lives.

I had two gut reactions to this; firstly - good. Politics has far too many people already in it to make a quick buck. Money should never be what attracts a person into a career in public service, not least as it opens you to corruption from the outset. I didn't stand for election to make money, and that that's how things have remained (if you want info on how much ordinary Councillors actually earn, it's here).

Secondly, scrutiny is good. Elected politicians are paid for by the public purse, and it's only right that the public should know how that money is being spent.

The Scottish Parliament, after a few early slip-ups (step forward Henry McLeish and David McLetchie), has made it's MSPs accountable down to the bottle of milk and the newspaper through public publishing of allowances paid. If you want, you can check through every MSP in Scotland. You can find out that Wendy Alexander for reasons unknown bought several copies of the same book. You can discover (and ponder why) Pauline McNeill paid minimal rent on her West End office in the last session. It's all in there.

So why doesn't Westminster follow the Scottish Parliament's good example? When even the much maligned European Parliament has made moves recently to improve it's systems of accountability, you can see how far Westminster is lagging far behind. All moves to improve access to allowances information tend to be fiercely resisted. Why? The only plausible reason is that MPs have too much to lose financially from public disclosure of their spending.

You might wonder where I think Glasgow City Council fits in all of this. Well, we do have to at least complete a declaration of interests. Mine is here. Personally, I don't think that's enough accountability, and I believe Council should also follow the example of the Scottish Parliament.

What I've been up to...

Since I've not been blogging, I have been:
at surgeries and carrying out ongoing ward work;
helping at the Lochee by election (which we won);
taking in the Radiance event;
at an SNP St Andrew's Night fundraiser;
at the two-day extravaganza which was the YSI Conference;
at a CHCP meeting;
at the Calton Area Association;
visiting schools and nurseries;
learning more about asylum seekers and refugees in Glasgow;
finding out what PEEK have been up to recently;
at an Executive Committee meeting;
at the Victim Support Glasgow open day;
at SNP National Council;
finding out about financial inclusion in Glasgow;
and attending a meeting in the Calton.

Glasgow Labour: stifling debate

I'm still mulling over the events of yesterday, where Labour moved to end a Special Council Meeting called by the SNP. The meeting had been called to discussed the motions which had fallen off the agenda at the previous Council meeting.

This included motions on a range of issues, and even a Labour motion. We thought that Labour would at least debate, and out vote us; that's the way things happen in Glasgow after all. Disappointingly, Cllr Colleran simply moved a adjournment under the standing orders of the Council. We voted, along with the Greens and the Conservative to continue the debate, but Labour's majority won out.

I was due to speak at the meeting on services for young people in Glasgow, and had got myself all psyched up. In the big scheme of things it might not seem very important that we sit in a room and speechify on worthy issues, but it's part of democracy in our city, and allows all Councillors the opportunity to try and influence Council policy. An unidentified "source" was quoted thus in the Evening Times:

A source close to Council leader Steven Purcell said: "The council is not a debating club.

"They cannot afford to waste their time on matters that have nothing to do with the council."

Attendance and participation at Council meetings are part of the Councillor's job, and it's disappointing to see that Labour consider that a waste of time.

Post offices at full Council

The issue of Post Office closures was under consideration at Full Council today following the submission of an emergency motion by Cllrs Findlay and Braat. This read:

This Council strongly believes that the local post office lies at the heart of the community and condemns the decision by Post Office Limited to propose the closure of a further 22 community post offices in the Greater Glasgow area.

Most severely hit in this wave of closures will be disadvantaged areas and communities with significant elderly populations.

Whilst recognising that Post Office Limited is now run on a commercial basis and that many of its former functions have been overtaken by technology and modern methods of communication, the company is - at the same time - a public service and must recognise that its network is of a significant strategic, economic and social importance to the communities it serves.

This Council, therefore, demands that, as part of the consultation process, an economic impact study be carried out in order to assess the impact of future closures both on rural - and urban - communities.*

All very worthy stuff and sentiments I generally agree with. It misses the point a fair bit though - this was brought about by the Labour Government in Westminster. All the Labour Glasgow MPs voted for it. None of this was mentioned in the debate by the Labour members who moved it.

The SNP's amendment sought to rectify what had been left out by adding:

Council deplores the duplicity of Labour MPs who voted for legislation and government policy to reduce the number and functions of local Post Offices, thereby betraying vulnerable communities. Council further urges all members to campaign for their retention.

This was brilliantly moved by Cllr Duffy, who tore into Labour for their lead role in all this and the hypocrisy in their current position. I seconded, talking about the Post Office in Dalmarnock, as mentioned below.

It came as little surprise that we were defeated 52:21:1, but it was fun to be able to play on the consciences of Labour members and at least attempt to get them to take some share of the blame. While they didn't make the final decision, the failure of the Labour group in Glasgow City Council to influence their MPs on such an important issue is pretty worrying. Perhaps they believed it would never happen to them.

I was patronised later in the debate in the most oily fashion possible by another member from my ward, but perhaps the least said about that the better. Perhaps if that member was true to the principles of cross party consensus espoused by the leadership of the Labour group, he would have been in touch to fight this closure together. Thus far he hasn't phoned, he hasn't written...

*I don't understand why there are so many commas in that last sentence either!