Public fury and street protest
What on earth is going on in Aberdeen? More precisely, what on earth is going on at Aberdeen City Council?
I lived in the Granite City in the late 1970s while working on the esteemed P&J.
My flat overlooked the harbour and memories from the time include the vessels in port sounding their horns at midnight on Hogmanay.
Such reminiscences occasionally still intrude on my contemporary central belt existence.
Consequently, I still retain a fondness for the city of the Northern Lights and an interest in its future.
Hence, again, the question. Can anyone enlighten me as to what on earth is going on at the city council?
The underlying issues. For some months now at Holyrood, knowing my North-east connections, sundry MSPs, notably of a Labour persuasion, have been regaling me with gossip of problems in the local authority.
Public concern
Glance at the city council's own website. There you will learn that authorities in the North-east have been co-operating to deal with the impact of the Grangemouth strike.
You will learn that Doonies Farm has just 60 days to prove its worth. Use it or lose it would appear to be the message.
No doubt shortage of space prevented the site from mentioning that the city council has been criticised by Audit Scotland over the sale of property assets.
Labour MSP Lewis Macdonald calls the disclosure "shocking". SNP MSP Brian Adam calls it a "matter of considerable concern" while noting that it all happened some time back.
Separately, the Accounts Commission is due to hold two days of hearings in Aberdeen in May following concern over the handling of the city's budget.
For concern, read public fury and street protest.
I'm 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~32~RS~)
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Brian
As one who was brought up in Aberdeen and still lives within reasonable travelling distance of it, I take an interest in it too. I remember seeing about the sale of Seafield and Carden House and wondering what was 'wrong' with the properties that they were sold so cheaply. I also wondered about why the tax-payers there were not asking more questions at the time. Maybe they were, but it did not hit the news. I've also been wondering how on earth they seemed to spending so much with so little income. This has been going on for years.
Yes What on earth is going on at Aberdeen City Council?
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Indeed Brian, I think the people of Aberdeen would quite like to know what other incompetence the council has perpetrated down the years.
I would say that the assets being undersold is completely shocking...except, given what has been disclosed in recent times, it ISN'T completely shocking now.
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My home town ,and I am bewildered by the revelations of council sell offs at knock down prices.
What on earth were they playing at?
Who benefitted?
Where are they now?
Will the police be able to bring prosecutions ?
Or will the whole debacle get the " Wendy " treatment?
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When I saw the title of this blog entry I wondered if it might refer to Christina McKelvie MSP's appearance on Newsnight Scotland, 23 April.
:-)
Agreed Aberdeen seems to be in a real mess. Are Audit Scotland going to ask why £80m or so is being spent converting Marischal College to a prestigious new office for staff.
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Any truth in the rumour land has recently been sold for a few £m and is now worth over £200m
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Why pick on Aberdeen? Pick almost any council in central Scotland. It has been going on for generations in some areas, which are little more than family fiefdoms or hardline leftist cliques. The common denominator is the apparent wealth of some people with no visible means of support, nor any discernible talents or education. Endemic corruption or congenital stupidity? I cannot say. But it's there if you care to look.
Search the planning permision records, or the licensing decisions over 50 years or more. Ask about Common Good Funds. Some of the names coming up are in high places.
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Aberdeen probably has the same problem as every other council in Scotland, it is populated by politicians of a below average standard who nod their heads at whatever the local party tells them to. Then, when it comes to decision making, they nod their heads at whatever the overpaid executives who actually run the council tell them to. Sadly,most of the executives are in post by default,(they didn't leave when they couldn't do the job properly) having progressed to highly paid jobs, not because they have talent but because they have managed to keep out of harm's way until seniority gets them a top job,at which point they can survive off someone else's talent without taking the blame when things go wrong.
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Aberdeen isn't the only council who "give favours" to local property developers it's been rife throughout the North East for decades. It will maybe give those in favour of the Trump proposal reason to question of who is in the pocket of who and which property developers will be the only ones to benefit from this potential travesty of democracy!
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Surely it's more a case of what WAS going on at Aberdeen City Council?
The present 'lot' aren't totally excused, but given that the Audit Commission is only examining events up until November '07 (I believe) and thus focussing on the previous two administrations (Lib-Lab and Lib-Tory), it's a bit unfair to point the finger at the current administration. Especially with regards to this latest scandal, which is clearly something dating from several years back.
Perhaps the question we should be asking is how did the previous two administrations get away with such incompetence???
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I think the names of the coalitions that have ran Aberdeen in the past says it all.
We have a Lib/Lab unionist coalition, followed by a Lib/Tory unionist coalition. It doesnt really matter which coalition was in power because they are both part of a larger political system that treated the Scottish People as a heard of sheep, there to be fleeced at the will of the system.
Claims of innocents will come out of both parties with the common denominator being the Liberals who would have been to busy procrastinating over their social conscience and helping some twenty people who were being disadvantaged and causing them to loose sleep at night. The libs under the pathetic Nicol Stephen are proven to be absolutely useless managers of anything they touch. The very thought of actually rolling up their sleeves and getting dirt under their nails would be an abhorrence to them.
ITS ABOUT ALL THE PEOPLE AND THEIR RIGHT TO EXPECT SOUND MANAGEMENT BY THE PEOPLE THEY VOTED FOR.
ITS TIME FOR SCOTS TO THROW OUT ALL THE UNIONIST PARTIES BY DECLARING UDI FROM WESTMINSTER. WE ARE NOT HERE TO BE THEIR PLAYTHINGS. WE SCOTS ARE ENTITLED TO FIRST CLASS SERVICES BECAUSE WE ARE A FIRST CLASS NATION
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Well Brian,
If this all happened a long time ago, how come the Police and the Financial Authority's are only looking at it now?.
Should the police not have conducted an investigation into this blatantly suspicious matter at the time it happened?. If not, what was stopping them?. Was it some `higher authority` whose concerns take precedence over the publics, or are our top policemen only interested in statistics?.
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Bad practices have built up for decades in this city council and nowhere is anyone identifying the real cause. Elected parties come and go but Chief Executive Officers, Directors of Departments and other managers don't change. These "council employees" advise our elected members and much of that advice goes unquestioned. Bad practice continues uncorrected and then becomes the norm.
Unless there is systemic change within the local authority adminstration then this perpetual incompetence will remain entrenched in the posts of the unelected council staff, particularly senior management, who will continue to rule with their poor managerial skills unchecked.
Financial incompetence, sex scandals, Unfair Dismissal payouts and negligent disposal of assets, what next? Who is accountable? Chief Executive Officers are. The people of Aberdeen have lost confidence in theirs and he should resign.
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Brian,
Bad practice, maladministration, and downright incompetence have been the hallmark of local government for the past 45 years.
Local government started to fall apart when the independent councillor disappeared, to be replaced by the political neds belonging to the political parties.
How many instances across Scotland have there been of a report of a meeting of a council committee have been published the day before the meeting took place?
How many times have we seen inter-department incompetence requiring retrospective planning permission?
Only last week I witnessed a roads department could not even have delivered enough top asphalt to complete the job so the entire gang stood around until the required top up of 5 tons eventually arrived all this after the end of the day so all were on overtime.
No one in local government has a work ethic at any level; it is what’s in it for me from the top to the bottom, how many do you see moving to private industry?
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None of this surprises me at all. Both the Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire councils are cliques that only seem to be out to protect their own positions.
There is nowhere that locals CAN raise concerns or ask awkward questions, as the local press and radio are well in with the "cooncil"
Take the AWPR for example, this madly expensive road will do nothing for Aberdeen's transport problems, but it WILL benefit the property developers, and the route was chosen by Tavish Scott to protect Nicol Stephens seat, but try asking questions about this in the local press - no chance of being published!
I hope this latest fiasco brings Aberdonians to their senses.
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Towards the end of last year, Aberdeen City Council advertised for a £50k p.a. Chief Public Affairs Officer who would be based in Edinburgh and, amongst other things, drive effective liaison with the corridors of power at Holyrood and St. Andrew's House. After a fair gap, applicants were eventually informed that the job description was going to be rewritten and the post re-advertised.
I rather suspect that it had actually dawned on the senior officers that this was a further PR disaster waiting to happen, even before the post arrived, i.e. creating a new post at a time of budget cuts and focusing on local-central relations (no bad thing in principle, mind you) at a time when the local context could, for want of a better phrase, be described as pear-shaped.
It will be interesting to see if some new iteration of the post ever does appear...
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It is sad that all this stuff happened, but has only been fully brought to light now.
I really do feel sorry for the SNP who have landed up in administration at just the time when all of the mismanagement that has gone on since 1996 has come to a head.
I suppose that the only way now is up for the council, I hope that they have now learned the harsh lessons of this period.
I was interested to see that the Labour Party were piling in on this one, scenting blood.
I would caution them against that, given that they were in power when a number of these sales for less than market value took place.
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Brian,
I have from a very good source (who I cannot divulge publicly) that Aberdeen Council are in such a bad state that in a few weeks they may not be able to pay wages.
I have heard Edinburgh Council are on the same path and the reason seems to be that neither Council tackled the equal pay problems quick enough and they are now paying the price!
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So true. But why stop at Aberdeenshire? The last administration in West Lothian pushed through approval of a new council HQ on a public park close to the centre of Livingston by ensuring those likely to object did not hear about the proposals in time to do so, and by denying the existence of a much better and far more sustainable site within easy walking distance of Livingston North railway station.
It was obviously far more important that councillors and officers should have a nice riverside location handy for the shops than that the new HQ should benefit from the under construction high quality rail connection with Edinburgh and Glasgow.
No, Aberdeen has no monopoly on bad local government: and the replacement of some of those in West Lothian responsible in the last election does nothing to make their decision any more acceptable or right. Nor does it bring back a lost public park, or ease the parking chaos that will follow the opening of the new HQ next year.
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I myself, as a 20 year old student, born, bred and still living in Aberdeen are wondering what is happening here myself. I dont understand all these school closures...how are they going to help anyone? The council are closing primary schools, some of which such as Causewayend, have been there since Victorian times!! Why? How did we get into this mess?! And i realise that school closures and budget cuts happen all over Scotland but how come the people of Aberdeen are having to suffer the most? What have we done to deserve it? We pay the highest council tax in Scotland (well not me cos im a student...but my parents and people that I know) and yet we are seeing the biggest budget cuts! Enlighten me someone!
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I wonder how many of you know that some of these sites were sold to allow GP surgeries and NHS dentists to built. If those sites had been sold at full market value those surgeries wouldn't have been built and patients would have continued to have been seen in inadequate premises with the services available to them limited by this.
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Brian:
Why were people protesting?
~Dennis Junior~
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