Sandy plans to stick it out
SHETLAND Islands Council convener Sandy Cluness is not budging despite two councillors calling for him to resign in the wake of the damning report from local government watchdog the Accounts Commission last month.
Shetland South member Allison Duncan issued a statement on Thursday afternoon that Mr Cluness should stand down, and later received the backing of Shetland West member Gary Robinson.
Fellow councillor Jonathan Wills did not go so far as call for the convener to resign, but did ask him to seek a vote of confidence in his leadership.
All three members recognise there is little appetite amongst their colleagues for change at the top, but are concerned that the council needs a new hand at the tiller before the next council elections when Mr Cluness and several other members will give up their seats.
However on Thursday afternoon Mr Cluness said that he intended to continue as convener until such time as a majority of councillors said otherwise.
“I have no interest in what the councillors are saying. As far as I am concerned this should go through the normal local authority procedures,” Mr Cluness said.
Mr Duncan called for the convener to go at a private meeting of 20 of Shetland’s 22 councillors with their new interim chief executive Alistair Buchan on Wednesday last week.
He said that he believed Mr Cluness had lost the confidence of the Shetland public and had been responsible for “a catalogue of serious errors that have brought this council into disrepute”.
He added: “I believe he has lost the confidence of the majority of the electorate. As I see it, the only way he can continue as convener is if he now seeks a vote of confidence from his fellow councillors who, like me, will know what their constituents are telling them and, I hope, vote accordingly.
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“I have thought long and hard about this and wish to avoid personal unpleasantness but I have come to the conclusion that my duty is to speak out and ‘tell it like it is’. The convener should do the honourable thing and resign.”
Mr Robinson said that he had expected Mr Cluness to resign following the Accounts Commission report which described the running of Scotland’s most northerly council as “haphazard” and in need of help.
However he admitted that at the moment there was no appetite for change amongst his fellow members, though he warned of problems ahead if the current leadership stayed on.
“If Sandy and (vice convener) Josie Simpson decide to stick it out to the bitter end then we are going to have a new leadership of the council just months before the interim chief executive sails off into the sunset,” Mr Robinson said.
“It would be important for some sort of succession planning to take place so that those members who would like to remain on the council beyond the next elections have a chance to drive the agenda.”
Councillor Wills said that Mr Cluness needed a new mandate from the whole council. “It means coming to the councillors to seek a vote of confidence and present a clear programme of how to get out of this mess.
“We are looking to him for leadership and support and in return I think he would probably win a vote of confidence.”
Dr Wills and others are angry that the Accounts Commission accused Shetland councillors of collective responsibility for the failings identified in their report, particularly surrounding the appointment and removal of former chief executive David Clark.
His successor will present his initial ideas for helping the council move forward at a meeting of the full council next Wednesday.
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