Effort to change petition rule fails Tories’bid to force rethink on bins overhaul defeated
A bid to change council rules so that a 5600-signature petition against a controversial overhaul of bin collections could be considered has failed.
Under current guidelines the council can ignore the petition as the decision - to cut grey and blue collections to from fortnightly to monthly - was voted through by full council in the last six months.
Tory councillors called for a special meeting in a bid to change the rules, held online last week, but they failed to push through the proposal aimed at forcing the ruling Snp/labour administration to rethink the move.
And council leader Scott Farmer said “misinformation” was to blame for the outcry following the unpopular changes to waste services.
The Tories had put forward an amendment to the official ‘scheme of delegation’ rules asking for all petitions with over 1000 signatures to be considered.
Instead the administration’s own motion which “recognised ongoing work to improve the council’s petition process” was voted in by 13 votes to eight.
The administration said a “Covid-19 Shortlife Working Group” was already considering how the petitions process should be amended, along with all other future operations of the council.
They said the current scheme of delegation, including the petitions process, would remain unchanged and new proposals for improving that process were expected to be brought to an upcoming meeting of the council as part of wider recommendations.
From next year, grey general waste and blue bin collections will reduce from fortnightly to four-weekly. Garden waste will also become chargeable. The changes were voted in by the administration on June 31.
A change.org petition set up days later calling for the plans to be scrapped now has more than 5,600 signatures.
During the meeting, council leader Scott Farmer (SNP) said: “These 5500 people may have signed a petition that was based on misleading information from the opposition in the first place.
“I’m very much on board with participatory democracy but we also have to make difficult decisions during challenging times and at the end of the day the waste transformation process has been going on for over two years. The indications were there in the budget options prior to it, it’s not as if it has been hidden away.”
Councillor Farmer described the Tories’ motion as politically motivated and unnecessary, suggesting the waste issue was “irrelevant” in the context of the special meeting, which he argued was about process within the council.
“Ultimately we have the ability if we believe a decision was either a mistake or there was a change of circumstances within six months, to revisit that through the democratic process,” he added. “A motion coming forward in this fashion is no way to do governance.
“It’s quite easy for the opposition or other groups to peddle misinformation in the community and rile up misguided people to join a petition when they do not have the full facts before them.”
Depute council leader, Labour’s Danny Gibson, said “conspiracy theories” had been banded around and there had been some “ludicrous” accusations made by the Tories.
He added: “The biggest con is this constant thing that we are denying the public or the petition. It doesn’t need a petition for this issue to get raised constantly. Raise it every time if you want. Knock yourself out, but please stop trying to give the public the impression we are trying to keep them out.”
Tory group leader Councillor Neil Benny, however, said: “It is not right that Councillor Farmer and Councillor Gibson hold all the power for themselves and say ‘it’s we who will say what goes and what doesn’t’.
“For them to hide behind a process and say we won’t change our processes to allow people to have their say is wrong. It allows councillors to hide behind standing orders and procedures.”
Fellow Tory councillor Bryan Flannagan said: “I am appalled at the high handed and condescending attitude of council leader Scott Farmer. How can he justify his administration’s recent actions when, in the official SNP manifesto for the last elections, he was pontificating about how much people should be involved in decision making.”