Dundee City Council meetings
Richard McCready
13 February 2012
At the Environment Committee on Monday I raised a number of questions.
I sought more details on a number of tender processes.
I was concerned that there was not enough detail in the reports about Land Service plant, the recycling of recovered materials and the supply of electric charging points.
I also asked about the progress being made at Caird Park Velodrome.
I welcome the investment in the velodrome
I see this as part of the Olympic and Commonwealth Games legacy.
I also asked for an update on the progress of allowing the cycling community in Dundee to have a say in the running of the velodrome.
At the Policy and Resources Committee there were a number of interesting reports.
I supported my colleague Kevin Keenan in calling for more information about the compulsory purchase order proposed for Dundee Waterfront.
I share Kevin Keenan's concern that as elected representatives we have to be certain that we are using public money appropriately.
In terms of the information in front of us today I just do not think that we could be certain that this was value for money.
Labour opposed sending councillors to the CIPFA Conference at the Caird Hall.
Sending councillors to this event costs £395.
I just do not see how this represents value for money.
I do not know how the council can make cuts as it did last Thursday and then say that councillors should be sent to these incredibly expensive events.
I think that the council should really be trying to join with other councils to tell organisations which run conferences like this that the costs of these conferences are ridiculous.

Kevin Keenan : Dundee job vacancies now the third lowest in 6 years

Dundee job vacancies now the third lowest in 6 years

Kevin Keenan

16 February 2012

Overall in Dundee, the total number of unemployed, males and females, stands at 5,549.
This represents an unemployment rate of 5.9 percent, above the Scottish average ( 4.13 and the UK average ( 4.0)
One very worrying figure from these unemployment figures is the number of vacancies for jobs in Dundee.

It is just 317 which is the second lowest level of vacancies in the past six years.

Over 17 unemployed people in the city are now chasing every vacant job.
I am in favour of the council setting up a jobs task force/income generator post and hope, in light of these figures that an incoming Administration give this consideration.
That would help us to look for local jobs for local people whereas the Scottish Government are awarding contracts for the Forth Road Bridge to companies in China.

This does nothing for the Scottish economy. and there is no job creation from it in Dundee."

Dundee City Council Labour group Budget statement

Dundee City Council Labour group Budget statement

Kevin Keenan

3 February 2012

Our budget proposals will help to improve the draft budget that has been prepared by the SNP Administration of the Council. We believe that our proposals will not only protect core services, especially schools, but will also help to bring more employment to our City. We started with a number of key assumptions. Firstly, there is no room for further reductions in the number of teachers in our schools. Last year the SNP-led Council reduced the number of teachers in Dundee by 99 in total.

Secondly, in a budget of £5.5 million transport costs, there is room for the kinds of economies that every family in the City has been making by cutting down on journeys. For Council staff, we think there needs to be more emphasis on home working, video conferences, phone calls and emails.

Thirdly, in planning the refurbishment and replacement of our schools, there must be some investment made available to spend on improving our four secondary schools built in the 1960s and on some primary schools not already nominated for refurbishment. We think that it is important that pupils who attend these schools are not left behind pupils who are in other new or refurbished schools in our City.

Fourthly, in a City that has lost hundreds of jobs in the last year and is predicted by City Outlook to lose more than 2,700 public sector jobs by 2016, we can’t sit back. We think it is important to generate more income for the city by tapping into external funding which will help make council budgets go further.

That is where our proposal for income generators reporting directly to the Chief Executive comes in.

We have also to had to consider the difficulties of making ends meet because of the very tight financial settlement from the SNP Scottish Government, coupled with the demands that they have made on local government, and which they have recorded in the Single Outcome Agreement. We should point out that we see Dundee’s SNP Administration looking for loopholes within the Agreement they made with the Government.

The Government want to retain teacher numbers, but this Administration will not count any visiting specialists when reporting figures to Government. The Government were right to make that demand of Local Government, as last year we saw 99 teacher posts taken out of our schools here in Dundee alone.

We must also consider the additional £67.7 million that was given by the UK Government to Scotland to assist Councils to freeze the Council Tax. Dundee’s share of this cash would be around £1.7million. Everyone should reflect on this when they see reduced services.

The Government intend to create two Change Funds, one to deal with Early Intervention, and the other to deal with Early Years. This SNP Administration has cut music and physical education teachers to help free the funds for these projects. Yet what part of physical education will not be seen as early intervention as we look for our citizen to adopt a healthier life style?

The Labour Group in Dundee therefore propose to amend the Administration's budget by the following means; -

£240,000 will be taken from the City Development budget as yet unallocated funds for bus route subsidy.

£30,000 of this was planned to up-date the bus route information system. £210,000 of this subsidy is not as yet allocated to any route, and therefore should not adversely affect any existing bus service.

£10,000 reduction of one Civic Car and £8,500 in picture hire and floral decorations we consider would have little or no effect on service delivery.

In a City of our size a second Civic Car is an extravagance we shouldn't afford.

In bringing these additional savings to the table, this allows us to reinvest £124,000 which will retain all the visiting specialists who were to be cut by the Administration. We believe these teachers will assist classroom teachers to deliver more effectively the Curriculum for Excellence.

It also allows the investment of £134,500 which we propose should be used to create new post/s for those whose remit is reporting directly to the Chief Executive and to maximise income and assist with the creation of jobs for Dundee people.

We will issue proposals which will re-profile the capital spend in the City which would see an additional £1.4m spent much earlier on Primary and Secondary School refurbishments to enable more of our School Estate fit for the 21st Century matching pupils' needs.

Co-ops - an answer to 'crony capitalism'?

Co-ops - an answer to 'crony capitalism'?
Richard McCready
2 February 2012
Over the last few weeks and months we have listened to party leaders such as Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and David Cameron set out their plans for responsible capitalism.
In part this is in response to the global economic crisis, but it should not only be a knee-jerk response to the economic crisis.
Perhaps we should have known all-along that there was a better way to do business.
2012 has been designated by the UN as the International Year of Co-operatives.
The theme for the year is ‘Co-operatives Build a Better World’, who could disagree with such a slogan?
But beneath the glib slogan there must be a challenge to everybody - what are we doing to make the world better?
I believe that co-operatives give us a real chance to make the world a better place.
The economic crisis was caused, at least in part, by a belief that shareholder capitalism was the only way to do business.
That thinking led to profits being chased without any thought for the consequences.
Are there really any alternatives?
I would say that a co-operative is a real alternative.
A co-operative is a group of people acting together to meet the common needs and aspirations of the members of the co-op, they share ownership and they make decisions democratically.
Across the UK 5,450 co-operative enterprises work in all areas of the economy.
Co-ops are well known in the retail sector, but there are also co-ops in housing, farming, football, finance, social care, energy and pubs.
Co-op pubs often allow a community pub to stay open when big business has given up on that pub and that community, this can be important in sustaining communities.
Co-ops in the UK are owned by 12.8 million people, more than one in five of the population.
Co-operatives do many of the things that the left think are good such as empowering consumers and the workforce. In the UK the Co-op movement has been at the forefront of promoting fairtrade.
But co-ops are also viable businesses which make a real contribution to the UK economy.
In 2010 the turnover of UK Co-ops was £33.2 billion.
In December 2011 Pope Benedict praised co-ops as helping to humanize the economy.
Many people from a faith perspective have seen that co-operatives value the dignity of the individual consumer or worker, usually both, and have recognised that there is a better way to organise business.
This is a business model which works across all sectors and all sizes of business.
It has the potential to change the way we do business in the future.
The Co-operative Party’s slogan for its campaign to remutualise Northern Rock and other demutualised Building Societies is ‘Fed up with banks that put profit before people? The Feeling’s Mutual.’
There is no doubt that that feeling is mutual and that putting far more enterprises into mutual and co-operative ownership would be popular and would show that lessons had been learnt from the economic crisis caused by banks chasing unsustainable profit.
The answer to the question posed by Cameron, Clegg and Miliband about responsible capitalism demonstrates that there is a better way and that way is, at least in part, about promoting co-operatives and mutuals.
In doing this we can go some way to making 2012 a year when co-operatives do build a better world and make the international year mean something.

Jim McGovern pushes UK Goverment for action on Jobs For Dundee

Jim McGovern pushes UK government to take action on jobs for Dundee
2 February 2012
Jim McGovern, MP for Dundee West, today asked the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to work with the Scottish Executive to promote job creation in Dundee.
Those on jobseekers allowance in Dundee West in December 2011 was 3,261 and 30% (995 individuals) of those were aged 18-24, above the average for the rest of Scotland.
Jim McGovern said,

"Dundee has a highly educated population and great potential, but unemployment remains stubbornly high.
"Youth unemployment is at a 17 year high across the UK.
"It simply isn’t good enough for the UK government to duck responsibility for these terrible figures.
"They need to rethink their damaging economic policies and put money into the economy to create jobs.
"The Scottish Executive has to use the powers it already has to promote economic growth in the city; the memorandums of understanding must turn into actual jobs on the ground.
"Spending their time plotting separation and blaming others for their lack of action does no good for real people in Dundee."