North Lanarkshire Council in conference row

Mar 11 2010 by kbarrSUN, Hamilton Advertiser

COUNCIL bosses facing £75million of cuts went to a £595-per-head three-day conference at a five-star hotel in St Andrew’s – where the economic recession was on the agenda.

It cost almost £4200 of taxpayers’ money to send six councillors and a top official from North Lanarkshire Council to the prestigious Fairmont Hotel which hosted the annual conference of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.

The plush hotel played host to world leaders at last year’s G20 Summit and has picked up a string of awards, including being named international resort of the year 2009 by Hotel Review Scotland.

Leader of North Lanarkshire Council Jim McCabe was accompanied by Wishaw Labour Councillor John Pentland. Also there were fellow Labour councillors Harry McGuigan and John Higgins, along with SNP councillors Paul Delaney and John Taggart. NLC’s Chief Executive Gavin Whitefield also attended.

A spokesman for North Lanarkshire Council said: “The CoSLA Conference, Excellence Awards and Convention are hugely significant in determining and debating areas of importance to our residents. The delegate cost represents significant value, subsidised by sponsors, and the council derive considerable commercial income from our contract to put on the awards. This seems to be yet another case of opportunistic council-bashing in which local government is singled out. Most organisations of any substance, including political parties and trade unions, organise annual conferences.

“This council does not send delegates to the vast majority of conferences we are invited to attend. We will continue our very positive engagement with CoSLA so we can ensure our residents benefit from any collective approach on the part of Scottish local government.”

As well as being Leader of North Lanarkshire Council, Councillor McCabe is also leader of the Labour group at CoSLA. Councillor Pentland is Convener of NLC’s finance and customer services committee, while Councillor McGuigan is CoSLA spokesman on community wellbeing and safety.

North Lanarkshire Council have made £15m cuts in 2010/11 with £60m more still to come.