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To: To the Electorate

No confidence in the administration at Argyll And Bute Council Kilmory

Dear Voter,

If you think that the current administration at Argyll And Bute Council Lochgilphead Kilmory is not fit for purpose can I ask that you sign this petition please? The intention is to confront them with a vote of No Confidence and to have them removed from office.

Why is this important?

The current administration of Argyll and Bute Council on the 8th of October 2015 brought forward proposals to its Policy & Resources Committee which, if implemented would cut from the Council’s budgets millions of pounds which pay for vital Council services and lay off over 400 employees including staff who support the, elderly, the poorest, and most disadvantaged school children. These so called “Service Choices” will go to the full Council on 22nd October and then be put out for consultation.

In a joint statement about the “Service Choices” proposals the local constituency MSP, a local Highland List MSP and the local Westminster MP described the plans as:

“ a devastating and brutal set of proposals, which have been slipped out hidden away in a mass of other Council papers rather than openly presented to local people. If these cuts were to go ahead they would render the Council not only unable to meet its core commitments but also unable to fulfil its statutory duties.

The Council leadership has presented to the people of its area a bleak picture of their future – one in which children in most need will get the least help, in which the streets go uncleaned, in which lollipop men and women, music instructors, janitors , classroom helpers, librarians and special needs assistants are all cast on the scrap heap, in which slower not faster broadband is provided in schools, in which museums close and Council services get worse and more expensive, in which charities providing essential help to the most vulnerable cannot survive, in which it costs more and more to be buried or cremated, in which refuse goes uncollected and grass uncut and in which even the Christmas lights are switched off. In reality these proposals will, by the Council’s own admission result in over 400 jobs being lost over the next few years. This area has very few employment alternatives available so depopulation will get even worse.The so called “service choices” process was meant to provide a new start by re-imagining the way in which the Council helped the people of the area. Instead what has appeared after months of secretive meetings is a desperately cobbled together list of random but very damaging of essential council services.

It also beggars belief that a Council of any sort could on the one hand be appointing new staff to posts in Education Management and Strategic Transport whilst at the same time proposing to lay off Special Needs Assistants, Music Instructors, School Librarians, and janitors. That approach shows a casual and callous disregard for the most vulnerable. It also shows how ill thought out these “choices” are, with no co-ordination between Council departments in the scramble to find cuts. For example Dunoon Grammar School is presently advertising for a full time “Attendance Officer” the Council is proposing to get rid of all such employees. That is simply one of the chaotic and contradictory elements in the package.Argyll & Bute has in done nothing to prepare its services for change , has failed to meet its core objectives and has mismanaged its resources . What is now being proposed is the outcome of that abject failure. We can no longer look to Argyll & Bute for the way forward after the mess that Dick Walsh and his administration have made. He and those supporting him have placed the council in severe jeopardy and those who live the Council area in desperate fear of the future. They should hang their heads in shame.”

In signing this petition you will indicate that you agree with that condemnation of the Council Leadership and that you want to see it removed and a better administration, more capable of running the area according to the wishes of local people, put in place.

Updates

2015-10-24 12:41:22 +0100

100 signatures reached

2015-10-17 11:57:09 +0100

50 signatures reached

2015-10-16 08:47:34 +0100

25 signatures reached

2015-10-13 18:46:49 +0100

10 signatures reached