Week 30

Strikes, departing chief exec, money, meetings, and a great video

Teachers strike, again

All parents should hopefully be aware of this soon if they’re not already but teachers are on strike again this Wednesday, 7th December and I imagine that most, if not all, schools in Nairn will be closed.

Chief Executive departing

Donna Manson, the chief executive of Highland Council, announced her resignation this week. After four years in the role she’s now off to do the same job for Devon County Council. There was a long article in The Press and Journal this week by Nicola Sinclair, herself an ex-councillor, which provides a good overview of her time here.

Donna doesn’t actually depart until February but it’s expected to take about six months to appoint a new chief executive so we’re likely to be without anyone in post for a while as we continue to negotiate these “interesting” financial times.

Money

Talking about finances the council is still getting to grips with how to cope with the rise in inflation with its knock on effects to the salary bill both of council employees and its sub-contractors, rising energy prices, and also rising interest rates.

This is illustrated neatly by agenda item 11 of the agenda for this week’s full council. Titled “Financial Crisis - Workforce Planning and Preparation” point 6.1 states that:

All budget holders have been informed that any spend committed in the remainder of the year should only relate to ‘essential spend’. Essential spend has been defined as ‘spend that ensures that the Council operates safely and meets the minimum statutory requirement for service provision’. This requirement extends to all areas of the Council’s activity, regardless of funding source.

Or, to put it in layman’s terms: they can only spend money when it’s legally necessary, not when it might just be desirable. I fear that this is going to impact on all sorts of things which the Council does.

In related news at the council’s Housing and Property Committee meeting on 17th November members agreed to pause any “non-essential” repairs to council homes. This will mostly apply to external work such as repairing garden gates, fences and paths but it could also bring a halt to any environmental improvement works, such as landscaping of council estates.

The council has little choice but to do this because spending is legally solely funded by tenants’ rent, and the council has to balance the books: it can’t spend any other money on this, even if it had any spare.

Winter in Nairn, Scotland's Winter Playground

After all this gloom let’s finish on a positive note. Visit Nairn, which is run by Nairn BID, published an excellent video this week to promote Nairn as a place to visit this winter with the title Winter in Nairn, Scotland's Winter Playground.

It’s available to watch on YouTube and, if you’re so inclined, you might want to share it on your social media. I know I have on Mastodon, Facebook, and Twitter so you might just want to boost, share, or retweet one of those posts as appropriate.