Decision on giving public a direct say on council spending is deferred
Claims that participatory budgeting has been blocked in South Lanarkshire have been rubbished.
Plans by the council’s SNP administration which would have given communities a direct say in how money is spent in council operations were deferred by a single vote.
The opposition groups banded together to defer the proposals by 13 votes to 12 at a virtual executive committee meeting.
Council Leader John Ross criticised the deferral. He said: “Over the past few months, we have seen a huge upsurge in community engagement.
“It was our ambition to build on that. Participatory budgeting is proven to not only build local resilience, but to make council services better as a result.
“Despite that, the Labour party kicked the proposal into the long grass and delivered a blow to both our recovery plan and community empowerment in the process.
“People should be at the heart of our decision making and this decision flies in the face of that ambition.”
In response, Labour group leader Councillor Joe Fagan said: “Nobody blocked Participatory Budgeting – an agenda item was deferred for further consideration by a majority of councillors from across parties.
“We’ve already taken steps, on a cross-party basis, to improve democratic oversight of the participatory budgeting proposals.
“With the council facing a Covid funding crisis, we just want to make sure we get this right. People’s jobs and services depend on us making the right decisions.
“If the leader of the council wants to misrepresent what happened then he can but I think that’s rather petty and, as the record will show, this is simply a deferral.
“My door is always open if they want to have a grown-up conversation about their political priorities but sadly the local SNP’s rather petty approach is one of the reasons for South Lanarkshire Council’s unfortunate decline over the past three years.”
Rutherglen councillor Robert Brown, the Liberal Democrat group leader, added: “Communities should absolutely have a say in how money is spent, but it has to be done right and not just be a token move.
“It’s sensible to take some time to consider how it will be delivered. That is far better than rushing it through just to tell people the council has done it.”