As well as the lengthy discussion about winter maintenance issues at the City Council last night, there were committee meetings and I highlight some issues below :
* It was good to see Blackness Primary School being one of four schools getting new synethetic multi-use games areas - this will be a boon in terms of the PE provided at the school.
* I supported a Labour motion to defer the move of 5 cultural and arts staff (and resultant £29 574 capital expenditure) from the Education Development Service base at Rockwell to the council's Music Centre. I spoke in the debate regarding this, expressing concern about the piecemeal way in which staff redeployment is happening - in challenging financial times, this sort of expenditure should be considered only as part of a comprehensive policy and where the case for another nearly £30k of expenditure can be justified.
* I spoke on the issue of homelessness and the council's progress with homlessness strategy and raised a question about monitoring of homeless applications.
* I also raised a question about expenditure on storage sheds and a rubber play surface at the Balmuir Wood travelling persons' site, pointing out the need to promote the site's facilities to the travelling community to avoid further examples of illegal encampments that we have seen in parts of the city including the West End again this year.
* I supported a Conservative motion to freeze on-street car parking charges, but the SNP administration pushed through this unnecessary parking charges increase on the Convener's casting vote.