Introduction from Susan Rae and Chas Booth (Green Group Co-Conveners)
It has been a tumultuous end to the year in the council and much of the past month has been spent cleaning up the mess left by the Labour administration. We want to pay our thanks to branch members and councillors for all of their hard work and support through this period. You will see from other updates that the Labour administration limps on, but please be assured that Green councillors will come back in the new year with renewed energy and vigour to continue to push the council to be bolder on climate justice, the housing emergency and so much more. We wish you all a good break over the festive period.
Councillor highlights from the month
Asked to pick one highlight from the month, our councillors said:
Alex Staniforth
Alex helped facilitate a discussion on accessibility to Holyrood Park at the meeting on the park organised by Lorna Slater.
Alys Mumford
Alys has been dealing with some particularly tricky case work on behalf of vulnerable constituents, which are bringing to light the real-life impacts of underfunding of local government and makes challenging the upcoming cuts in health and social care even more important.
Ben Parker
As the group housing lead, Ben has continued work on the homelessness crisis. His emergency motion at committee calling out the council administration’s calls to roll back on homelessness rights captured the attention of Shelter Scotland who, following the vote at committee, publicly declared that they had lost faith in the council leadership. Ben is working with councillors, officers and the 3rd sector to find a way through the crisis.
Chas Booth
In response to a very disappointing report that the council’s greenhouse gas emissions have risen by nearly 2% over the last year, when they should have fallen by 20% in the last four years, Chas successfully brought an amendment to committee calling for bolder action on climate finance and fleet decarbonisation.
Claire Miller
Claire won unanimous support for a motion at full council, seeking a review of the way councillors oversee council workers’ health and safety, on the back of calls from Unison for all-party involvement in this vital issue.
Dan Heap
Dan’s work on Culture and Communities has seen him secure commitment that large scale events will now repay all costs incurred by the council to facilitate safe delivery of events such as crowd management, security and cleaning.
Jule Bandel
Jule has been taking some time off work due to illness whilst still ensuring that the day-to-day casework is completed.
Kayleigh O’Neill
At Transport and Environment Committee, Kayleigh highlighted how inadequate progress had been at protecting our coastlines and accurately predicting the impacts of climate change and called for an acceleration of this work.
Susan Rae
Susan has been working hard on negotiations with other councillors as part of the crisis in administration.
Steve Burgess
This month at Pensions Committee, Steve proposed an amendment to strengthen the Lothian Pension Fund policy on climate change, including reducing investment in fossil fuel companies. The committee decided to continue consideration of the policy until March.
Committee updates and other things to look out for in the coming month:
Budget
As finance lead, Alex Staniforth has led preliminary discussions on the budget with both the group and branch, with further discussion scheduled for January.
Policy and Sustainability
At Policy and Sustainability Committee, the latest Council Emissions Reductions Plan showed that council emissions increased by 2% in the past year, which is incredibly disappointing. Coming up in January, the committee will hold a special meeting to take the next decision towards delivering a visitor levy for the city, where we will continue to press for the levy to be invested in social housing and resident-led spending.
Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work
At Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee, Ben’s work on hosting an “Accessible Housing Summit” for the city took another step forward as plans were made to agree the summit should happen early in the new year.
Education, Children and Families
Committee will be considering an officer report that proposes £12m of cuts to the education budget in 2025/6.
Health & Social Care
The draft strategy for the Integration Joint Board is about to go out for consultation again. We’re concerned there are attempts to make this less ambitious for people’s wellbeing so we’ll be calling on members to respond to this once it’s out!