SCORES ON THE BOARD FOR... COUNCIL PARTY CHIEFS
THE leadership of Glasgow’s parties at the council have an average committee attendance record of more than eight out of 10. The Glasgow Times obtained the records of all 85 city councillors at committees for the past three years.
This week we have been looking at the attendance records at committee meetings for councillors in all areas across Glasgow.
Today, we highlight the attendance of the leaders and deputy leaders of each of the four political parties on the council.
The SNP is the biggest party with 36 councillors, Labour has 29, the Conservatives seven and the Greens have seven. There are four independents, who were elected as SNP councillors in 2017. There are two vacancies with by-elections being held next month in Baillieston and Partick East Kelvindale.
Today, we show the attendance scores for the leader of the council, SNP councillor Susan Aitken, and her deputy, David McDonald. We have also picked out Labour’s new leadership team of Malcolm Cunning and Eva Murray, Tory group leader Thomas Kerr and his deputy Ade Aibinu and Greens co-convenors Allan Young and Martha Wardrop.
As they are all members of different committees, they have a different number of meetings they are expected to attend.
Martha Wardrop was expected at the most, at 204 over three years. She attended 127 of them, a rate of 63%, the lowest of the party leadership teams.
Labour Group leader Malcolm Cunning had the highest record, being present at 91%, which was 131 of 145 possible attendances.
Susan Aitken, the SNP group leader and leader of the council, was present at 85% of her meetings. She was at 76 out of 89 meetings over the three years. In 2019, she missed just one.
While Thomas Kerr, Conservative Group leader, was present at 89% of his meetings, which was 94 out of 106.
We obtained the figures following our reports that two councillors lost their seat for non-attendance at meetings. Councillors are required by law to attend one meeting every six months.
We reported on Tony Curtis, who became an independent councillor after he fell out with the Conservatives over lack of support for gym owners, of which he was one.
He failed to show up at any meetings after that and in December was kicked out.
Then veteran Labour councillor Jim Coleman fell foul of the same law after it came to light he had not been seen at a meeting since last March.
We also reported how independent and former Labour and SNP councillor Russell Robertson skipped a full council meeting last September to go on a three-day drinking trip to Edinburgh.