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Council Tories fighting back
Leader defends position on scrutiny committee
North Lanarkshire’s Conservative group leader has hit back over opponents’ criticism of her role as convener of the council’s audit and scrutiny committee.
Meghan Gallacher spoke out following last month’s special meeting of the local authority, at which her party and Labour members voted against SNP motions calling for the public release of internal audit reports on “North Lanarkshire Leisure, its board, foreign trips and subsidiary companies” and “e x a m i n i n g allegations of fraud and corruption around aspects of procurement and contracting arrangements”.
At the meeting SNP depute leader Tom Johnston questioned the award of the audit and scrutiny convenership, held for the previous year by the SNP, to the Conservative group, who he described as Labour’s allies based on the two parties voting in the same way on key issues, including the council leadership.
He said this week : “Council leader Jim Logue must explain his decision to remove the convenership of the scrutiny panel from the SNP opposition group and transfer it to Labour’s Tory allies.
“This is against the recommendation of the chairman of the Accounts Commission in Scotland.
“The Audit Commission recommend that the clear opposition parties be given the watchdog function.
“Whistleblowers must have faith that the convener of audit and scrutiny will act positively and robustly on any revelations received.”
Councillor Gallacher responded by accusing the SNP of attempting to score political points, saying: “They know it would not be sensible to release the report relating to the Labour leader whilst this is under investigation with Police Scotland.
“In relation to the other report, it was decided at a committee meeting in July that it would be referred to the policy and resources committee.
“Councillor Johnson questioned my role as audit and scrutiny convener.
“At the committee’s meeting in July the report was an agenda item.
“If the SNP felt that the council should release the report in full this should have been raised by one of their members. Instead the SNP chose to discuss this in the chamber to cause grievance and politically point-score.”
Tory MSP Graham Simpson said: “This all stems from the SNP failing to win control of the council. They are on a mammoth sulk and they need to get over it. The SNP in North Lanarkshire need to stop the personal attacks and start representing their communities.”