Five votes sinks bold move to consider break-up of Highland Council as most councillors prefer to see the whole region run from Inverness
A narrow vote saw Highland Councillors sink a bold move to take the first step to reviewing how the region is governed despite widespread dissatisfaction with the local authority.
The news was immediately greeted with disappointment by those who backed the motion like Conservative group leader, Cllr Ruraidh Stewart, who said it was “missed opportunity for meaningful reform and a real setback for local democracy”.
It was surprisingly rejected by the SNP-led administration because representatives of both the right and left of the party in Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes and former First Minister Humza Yousaf called for the council to be broken up..
The motion stated that “no amount of good intentions and efforts from this chamber and council can realistically deliver the best for such a diverse population” because “the issues we face are structural in nature”.
It continued that these issues were “forced upon this area nearly 30 years ago in nothing more than an experiment, with no regard for the needs of the people and communities across the Highlands”.
The councillors pushing for improvements wanted council leader Raymond Bremner to formalise a request to the Scottish Government and for the council to establish a “working group for the delivery of local democracy”.
Part of their motivation is outlined in an earlier report here but essentially many people feel that over such a large area a one size all approach does not work therefore it fails many communities.
Instead, Greens Councillor Kate Willis tabled an amendment that was backed by 37 votes to 32 which started by recognising the Highlands – a local authority region that is larger than Belgium – “is geographically very large”.
It continued: “It is important that council recognises the importance of devolved governance to area committees in order to fully represent our diverse local communities and to deliver the support and services that people in the Highlands, quite rightly, demand.
“Therefore, this council agrees to review the governance and funding arrangements of area committees so that they may better serve the needs of their local communities.
“The first step being to capture member views in more detail with the establishment of a workshop and working group for the delivery of local democracy”
Effectively all that achieves is that the same powers currently held in Inverness may or may not be delegated to the area committees even in the unlikely event that councillors from across the region could agree on what should be delegated to them.
But there is no timescale for reporting on progress of that endeavour so there is no guarantee that there will be any progress made ever.
Cllr Andrew Baxter made a similar point when spoke in favour of the original bid referencing former council leader Margaret Davidson’s much vaunted and totally ignored Commission on Highland Democracy.
The proposer of the motion, Cllr Andrew Jarvie, was at pains to underline that many of the shortcomings of the local authority were a-political and not the fault of officials, that essential the area is too big to govern well as it stands.
But Cllr Willis, referring to the £2.1 billion Highland Investment Programme argued that such a level of investment would be impossible for smaller councils to achieve, if Highland Council was broken-up.
Except, that was not the proposition. The proposition was to look at how to better run the region by engaging with MSPs from across the political spectrum who have opened a door to looking at the issue.
