Leisure Trust called on to be more accountable
Cllr wants more transparency
Rutherglen schools are being invited to enter the Scottish SPCA’s first film competition for pupils.
Scotland’s animal welfare charity visits schools every year to deliver its Prevention through Education programme, encouraging pupils to become responsible animal citizens and encouraging empathy and compassion towards animals.
Primary and secondary schools have been invited to submit a short film that educates the public, in particular their peers, on key animal welfare issues.
Scottish SPCA head of education and policy, Gilly Mendes Ferreira said: “Since 2010 we have seen over 300 per cent increase in the calls where children have alerted us to animals in need of our help, which saved injured wildlife and uncovered cases of neglect.
“We’re thrilled to be launching this competition for primary and secondary schools and hope this continues to encourage children and young adults to be #AlwaysAnimalAware.
“We truly believe children are the key to making a real difference to animal welfare in Scotland.”
For more information about the 2019 schools film competition got to the Scottish SPCA website at scottishspca.org/education/. EDEL KENEALY
The organisation responsible for libraries, leisure centres and arts in South Lanarkshire has to more accountable to the public, a Rutherglen councillor has said.
Robert Brown this week demanded South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture (SLLC) be more open and transparent after the chairman of the board resigned with little explanation.
David Watson, councillor for East Kilbride, stood down from his role after a bitter row with council officials over how an employee grievance should be dealt with legally.
However, full details of the dispute and legal implications for both the council and SLLC were not properly reported to elected members, Councillor Brown has claimed.
The Rutherglen South representative says that a lack of information about the employee grievance demonstrates the needs for greater transparency within the Trust – an organisation, which received £18.6 million to manage council services in 2018/19.
He told the Reformer: “This may sound like an argument amongst council insiders with no relevance to the public.
“But, in fact, it is about the running of services that are important to everyone – swimming pools, libraries, halls, meeting places.
“For example there was a later item on the agenda indicating that the council might have to bail out the trust to the tune of an extra £400,000 this year. It is quite unacceptable to be in this position without the Trust board being publicly accountable for it.”
Councillor Brown added: “South Lanarkshire Leisure & Culture Trust holds its board meetings in private, there is no public notification of its agenda and there are no published minutes of its decisions.
“Frankly this is quite outrageous for a body which runs so many important council facilities.”
A spokesman for SLLC said copies of minutes of Trust meetings are available on request from the organisation’s company secretary. He said: “SLLC is a charitable trust which operates in accordance with guidelines from the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator.
“It is a separate organisation from South Lanarkshire Council and its board includes a range of community representatives including elected members.
“The format for the operation of SLLC was laid out when the organisation was established and has remained broadly the same for the 17 years the organisation has been in existence.”
The spokesman added: “SLLC will review its operations in early 2019, including how it interacts with the council, and the council will be consulted as part of this process.
“SLLC understands that the council’s executive committee was advised in December of this review.
“The review will look at many aspects of SLLC’s operations and the documents that guide them, and this is expected to include the format for board meetings.
“The results of the review will be presented to the SLLC board for consideration and will also be reported publicly to the council.”
It’s quite unacceptable to be in this position without the Trust board being publicly accountable for it