COLUMN: I held hopes that there might be some dilution of the Inverness hegemony which has endured for far too long. I now have doubts
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The Way I See It by Jim McGillivray
To the victor belong the spoils.
After years as the main opposition group in the Highland Council, SNP councillors are now the dominant people in the administration hierarchy.
Last Thursday’s council meeting was the point at which the goodies were divided out and the leading faces for the coming years voted into place.
With the new administration leader hailing from Wick and the convenor from Badenoch, I held hopes that there might be some dilution of the Inverness hegemony which has endured for far too long. I now have doubts.
In the past few years, as a token observation of the localism agenda, those elected to the chair of area committees such as the Sutherland County Committee, were allocated a small uplift in salary in recognition of the additional workload involved.
That was removed at a stroke last Thursday and the money (a significant sum of nearly £6,000) aggregated and allocated to the salary of the chairman of the Inverness City Committee.
To adapt the words of George Orwell, all area committees are equal, but one area committee is more equal than all the rest put together.
The money involved is minor but there is a clear principle involved, and I seconded my fellow East Sutherland and Edderton ward councillor Richard Gale’s amendment to have this reviewed.
However the administration closed ranks and the amendment was defeated by 34 votes to 30.
So much for localism in this new council.
Some more numbers which will affect us all: the council’s average external debt for the last financial year was £943 million with associated loans charges of £58.2 million.
The annual general capital grant which comes down from Scottish Government is £23.444 million – roughly equivalent to two primary schools.
With both the chairman and vice-chairman of education from Skye, you can hazard a guess where the next round of new primary schools is going.
The rough cost of a new secondary school is not much short of £60 million by the time snagging is sorted.
With the chairman of corporate resources based in Tain, I suspect the campaign for a replacement Tain Royal Academy will now have a new momentum.
This to be viewed in the context of the 15-year, £1.75 billion capital spend proposed by the last Indie–Lib-Dem–Lab Administration.
The question must be put, are these costly local ambitions affordable by a council which has maxed out on its credit?
Inflation is approaching 10 per cent per annum. Interest rates are rising; there is a cost-of-living crisis, and there will be over the course of the next few months some substantial public sector pay claims to settle.
The economic winter has started, and the seasonal winter will soon follow.
Finally, I was very humbled to again be elected as one of the three ward councillors for East Sutherland and Edderton.
I shall do my best to live up to the trust placed in me. And please be patient with newly-elected councillors. It is a near-vertical learning curve.
Jim McGillvray, who lives in Embo, was reelected at the May 5 Highland Council elections to serve another term in office as ward councillor for East Sutherland and Edderton.
