Only One Highland Area Committee Has Been Cancelled In November - Caithness
8th November 2022
Highlighted by former councillor Nicola Sinclair now a reporter in her article in the web site for the Groat and Courier is the fact there are no decisions required by the Caithness Area committee.
It may be a surprise that councillors could not come up with some topics for discussion rather than rely only on officials to make up the agenda with nothing on it so cancelling the meeting.
With Highland council budget in deep trouble and with serious affects for services in Caithness perhaps sometime coming up with ideas on that front could fill a few minutes. The Scottish government has announced one Billion pounds of cuts much of which will affect councils on way or another.
The cost of living this year and is devastating for many families with possible much worse coming next year.
Although many decisions are taken in other committees perhaps the local area committee could have taken a look.
It would not take long to find issues needing debate and perhaps preparing for the recession that is already upon us and due to get worse with more interest rate rises on the horizon.
Rising rent arrears for tenants would be worthy of discussion locally even if it is decided on another committee of the highland council.
Nicola Sinclair's article says "Highland Council has 11 area committees, set up in a bid to devolve power from Inverness to local communities." But leaving it to "Other Committees" does not seem to suggest much power has been devolved so far.