Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Suburban CC plea for office accommodation

On Tuesday night, the Chair of the Subbies, Dick Youngson, echoed similar frustrations aired recently at a River CC meeting. He said:  

"Everything is being done voluntarily and we are asking Highland Council for office accommodation in the Courthouse perhaps with phone and IT links where we can meet people centrally. We can’t really function properly just using our own houses for meeting rooms and things like that. It’s really not fair, I’ve got a room that is full of files – John has as well, he can’t even get into his garage for the same reason. We’re all ending up in the same boat. There’s so much on at the moment, we do need better facilities. We have to get something from Highland Council. We’re doing all this work for nothing, absolutely nothing and it takes up a lot of time.”

“It could be something that’s shared,” added John MacKie.

“We could share with all the community councils, even those on the periphery could actually come in and have meetings. It’s very important that we do get something, I know there are a lot of changes being made in the Courthouse and there are other teams and groups coming in. All we need is a sort of permanent meeting room for all our information. It is something we will be raising with Liz Cowie and the four ward councillors.”

Gurnmeister opinion: The "usual suspects" give their time freely to the community unlike our four Highland Councillors who are paid for their work. Some of them give up a considerable amount of their time too and possibly work just as hard and long as our Highland Councillors Laurie, Liz, Michael and Colin. Could  a room or two not be found in the Courthouse for the CCs to enable them to carry out their tasks more efficiently - after all the Courthouse and other Council buildings are public property and the Community Councils represent us too and are working on our behalf. An organisation like Highland Council, with its budget of hundreds of millions, could surely find a permanent office for Tommy, Dick and Rosemary and their colleagues who do so much on our behalf?

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Honestly, what a bunch of children. Wanting a seat in the powerhouses whatever next?

Get real you volunteer for community work you knew what the conditions are!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a reasonable request to me, especially the storage of files etc. Not sure if there could be a move to start scanning and cataloging files thus storing them digitally; I know this is all volunteers at work but perhaps there's someone out there who would be prepared carry out such a task? I seem to remember the museum started something like this?

Anonymous said...

next they'll be wanting expenses, the before long a salary

Anonymous said...

@Anon 12:46

Maybe as you feel so generous to our volunteer community councillors anon you'd like to offer them all use of your home for meetings and storage?

Didn't think so

Anonymous said...

Amazing, Council employees are being made to hotdesk and these so called volunteer groups want to highjack offices. Is this for the communities benefit or their own

Anonymous said...

Couldn't our four Higland Councillors all contribute a few K out of their own wages to help the unpaid volunteers out with an office and some equipment?

Anonymous said...

It's worth looking up the dictionary for the word volunteer.

What will our esteemed CCs want next pension rights, ipads, travel expenses to the courthouse, teas & snacks, meals need I go on.

Anonymous said...

There you are all you homeless people - open invite as per Gurnmeisters comment "County Buildings are public property" job done. Why has no one thought of this before!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Good God, I can't believe some of the ungrateful brats there are out there!

I fully support that the Community Councils should have office accommodation and even some form of admin support. The amount of work that they have to do is unbelievable and yes, they have put themselves forward to do this, but I bet that most of them would never have anticipated how much work is involved, how much they are expected to do with no support, how much they would be inundated with correspondence and paper work, especially in the last few years. All on a volunteer and unpaid basis.

Councillors, and council employees are very well rewarded for their work. Councillors get salaries and expenses and are provided with modern, up to date and very expensive equipment; computers, ipads, smartphones, access to internet etc and have office and technical support and backup available.

Community Councils and Community Councillors have none of this, they are given a very small grant each year which is meant to provide for everything. They are expected to work on a shoestring, carrying out a very vital service from within their own homes, using their own facilities, computers, phones etc to run what is effectively a similar function to the old district councils.

I applaud all the Community Councillors for the service they provide, free of charge. We would be in a far worse place if we didn't have them.

Anonymous said...

"Council employees are being made to hotdesk". Awwh, boo hoo, welcome to the real world.

Anonymous said...

Anon@2.18pm, you forgot to mention salaries :)

Anonymous said...

I predicted when all this started that before long there would be costs involved.
The CC's are now basically doing what the HRC's should be doing.
The HRC's are now doing what the MSP's should be doing
The MSP's are doing what the MP's should be doing.
The MP's are now just filling their own pockets and future consultancy prospects working for big business.
I'm no small-government Tory, but the last thing we need is another layer of politicians costing money. One of the layers needs to go before we start bankrolling any more, but no, it shouldn't be the CC's.

naemarecooncil said...

Community Councillors are as pointed out volunteers. Our Councillors are elected by us, paid by us to REPRESENT us. Community councils are a gaggle of busybodys who don't actually do much, if you are not happy with your Highland Councillors, elect new ones.
Why should taxpayers money be wasted on what is little more than a quango?
As for sharing the Courthouse, who pays for their use and phone calls? In any case, I'm sure this would not be legal and the use of council networks a security risk.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous - think you missed the point re hotdesking - means not enough space for everyone, surely that would include our CC volunteers unless they think otherwise!!!!!!

Hot Gossip said...

@anon 2:05

May I ask,is this so called practise
of "hotdesking" being being executed
on top of,or underneath said desk.?

Eddie Snowden said...

"The use of council networks a security risk"

I hate to put the frighteners on you naemarecooncil but I use the council network to renew my library books. Is this a sinister plot on my behalf to infiltrate and hack Highland Council and maybe take ma books out for an extra day longer? Goodness only knows what mischief community councillors could get up to on the same network; as had been suggested they could maybe start paying themselves a salary, or order stationary supplies.

What is clear is that we should inform MI5 about these grave possible breaches of security. I know that I use the networks every three weeks to renew ma books

And that nice Theresa May was only saying the other day that Scotland's security would collapse when we become independent - help ma boab naemarecooncil, what will we do then?

naemarecooncil said...

No Eddie, you don't use the Highland Council network, if you use the internet in the Library you use the "People's Network." The Highland Council network is completely independent. Hey theres an idea, let the CC's meet in the library!

Eddie Snowden said...

Well here's an idea, maybe the community councillors could be given access to the 'Peoples Network', just be a case of plugging a different wire in and then you could sleep happy naemaircooncil knowing that security hadn't been breached and no one was fiddling with your council tax bill

growtosow said...

Anonymous said...
Good God, I can't believe some of the ungrateful brats there are out there!

I fully support that the Community Councils should have office accommodation and even some form of admin support. The amount of work that they have to do is unbelievable and yes, they have put themselves forward to do this, but I bet that most of them would never have anticipated how much work is involved, how much they are expected to do with no support, how much they would be inundated with correspondence and paper work, especially in the last few years. All on a volunteer and unpaid basis.

Councillors, and council employees are very well rewarded for their work. Councillors get salaries and expenses and are provided with modern, up to date and very expensive equipment; computers, ipads, smartphones, access to internet etc and have office and technical support and backup available.

Community Councils and Community Councillors have none of this, they are given a very small grant each year which is meant to provide for everything. They are expected to work on a shoestring, carrying out a very vital service from within their own homes, using their own facilities, computers, phones etc to run what is effectively a similar function to the old district councils.

I applaud all the Community Councillors for the service they provide, free of charge. We would be in a far worse place if we didn't have them.

3:03 PM i agree with the above. they do a great job for our town. just a shame that some folk seen to think that they do nothing. and i would say this is far from the case. perhaps some of the folk who have made negative comments could do a better job?