City Council Meetings

Monday evening saw meetings of the City Council and various committees. The Education Committee saw some interesting reports. There was a report about primary schools getting synthetic grass games areas I welcome this, I also welcome the fact that there is to be some public access to these areas. I was disappointed that the Convener of Education told my colleague Kevin Keenan that the all-weather pitch at St Paul's Academy was run by Dundee Leisure. This is not the case and there seems to be a problem with making it accessible to the public - what's the problem?

My colleagues in the Labour Group and I are concerned that we are not getting enough information about the future of council services. We moved to defer spending on education department's Music Centre until we had a full report on all property related issues in education and also the full council budget. The report before us tonight was flimsy and did not make the case that the spending was unavoidable. I was pleased that the Chief Executive restated that he has made representations to ensure that HMI(e) and Learning and Teaching Scotland jobs should be retained in Dundee if the merger goes through.

At the City Development Committee I was pleased to see a report on future rail services in Scotland. I agree with the report that we need to ensure that the Tay Estuary Rail Study should be treated seriously by Network Rail and the Scottish Government. I am committed to working with anyone to try and bring better rail services to Dundee.

I was disappointed that the Administration pushed through plans to increase car parking charges both for off street car parking which is being forced on us by the Con Dem government's increase in VAT. Unfortunately the Administration pushed through on the Convener's casting vote plans to increase on-street parking charges. This was not necessary as there is no VAT on these charges.

The Social Work and Health Committee considered a very interesting report on a Charter of Rights for People with Dementia. This comes from the Cross-Party Group in the Scottish Parliament on Alzheimer's which is chaired by my colleague Irene Oldfather MSP. There was an excellent report from the Care Commission on the Out and About Support Service. I am clear that this report should have been sent to Scrutiny Committee rather than the Social Work and Health Committee. I was also disappointed that proposals were made to change the Elms Close Support unit. Again I think that any changes to this needed to consider the whole picture of where the council is going I do not feel that was available to the committee this evening.