SIC protects budget to promote Shetland
A VOTE by Shetland Islands Council’s development committee to decide the future of Promote Shetland was held in private on Wednesday following a disagreement by its members.
Committee chairman Alastair Cooper was forced into casting the deciding vote as the council ruled whether to continue outsourcing work to marketing organisation Promote Shetland once its current £394,000 a year contract runs out at end of March next year.
The council confirmed on Thursday that the committee voted against the recommended option and instead went for a choice that will maintain the existing budget and staff over the next five years but will see some services done in-house.
It was added to the shortlist as an extra choice following suggestion that Shetland would need extra promotion as a result of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.
The option recommended for councillors to pick would have seen the council save £128,000 per annum.
The committee decided on the day to hold the vote in private due to concerns over connections between individuals and contracts, Cooper said.
Promote Shetland currently runs as a branch of Shetland Amenity Trust, which won tendering processes in 2009 and 2013.
“The individuals of the contract were very widely known. You were discussing things which could relate back to them,” Cooper said.
“When you start speaking about the contract and the delivery of that, you start speaking about individuals, and it’s very, very difficult. The previous things we were speaking was about the process, so it wasn’t working with the actual contract itself.
“I was concerned that you could have had it in private and had a particular discussion without saying things that would draw attention to individual, so I thought it’d be better to have it in private and then you wouldn’t have that problem.”
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Council leader Gary Robinson was one of four councillors who voted to keep the meeting public, but he admitted there was “no right or wrong answer”.
He said discussions over length of contracts and other organisations, as well as the fact that a small team of people were employed through the contract, meant there were some “grounds” to hold it in private.
Amanda Westlake, who also voted against the meeting going private, said she “didn’t see any reason” why it couldn’t have been public.
Billy Fox and Andrea Manson also chose to keep it public, while Cooper, Theo Smith, Robert Henderson and Mark Burgess opted to make it private.
Councillors were given a total of six options to chose from as they decided how to deal with the future of Promote Shetland, which was formed seven years ago to boost the profile of the isles as a place to work and live in.
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