Category Archives: Highland Council

Will relaxed nat Roy Pedersen take up invitation and come over to learn a few facts about life without RET?

Posted on February 27, 2012 | 1 Comment
Relaxed

Council leader Angus Campbell has invited blinkered SNP Highland transport mouthpiece Roy Pedersen to see for himself the evidence of benefits of RET for commercial vehicles.

Councillor Pedersen is now going about saying to anyone who will listen that he feels “quite relaxed” about removing RET from commercial vehicles and that “the introduction of RET for commercial vehicles really had very little impact in terms of generating freight traffic to and from the isles or in terms of prices in the islands”.

Now Angus Campbell is not relaxed. He hissed: “Any suggestion that the introduction of RET has had very little impact in terms of freight traffic and prices is completely misguided and in direct contradiction to the facts. At a recent meeting with the Outer Hebrides Transport Group they showed the evidence that industry had indeed passed on the benefits from RET to consumers.”

Now the council leader has invited Relaxed Roy Pedersen to the islands to meet with the Outer Hebrides Transport Group.

It will be like teaching counting to a wee child, I suppose. Now, if it costs £5,000 more to take a kit house on the ferry, how much more will the final price of the house go up by? Young Roy, put your hand up when you have worked out the answer.

Officially, of course, the invitation to the less-than-bright SNP mandarin is in order that he can get a proper understanding of the positive impact that RET has had on homes and businesses across these islands, and of the very serious implications that surround its removal.

Campbell muttered: “It’s possible that he may feel less relaxed about the issue when confronted with the reality that face these islands if RET for commercials is removed. The thought of jobs being lost and a further rise in the cost of living leaves many in the Western Isles, including myself, feeling distinctly uncomfortable.”

→ 1 Comment

Posted in ferries, Government, Highland Council, RET, transport, Western Isles

Updated – Questions about Highland Council and Stephen Mackay, social worker

Posted on June 28, 2011 | 4 Comments

UPDATE: – I put specific questions to Highland Council about what support Mr Mackay had when he found out his wife was dying and what the council did to ensure he was not the subject of a vendetta by certain staff. Mysteriously and disgracefully, they gave these questions a bodyswerve. They trotted out again what we all know, saying: “Mr Mackay was subject to a thorough investigation throughout which he was supported and represented by his professional organisation (BASW). The decision to dismiss him was not appealed. The information was passed to SSSC without recommendations and the Council was not involved in their action.” Is this lack of honesty a sign of something more sinister?

The story of disgraced social worker Stephen Mackay, of Ardross, got quite a few column inches in the last few days. Wow, some story. There is no doubt that he failed badly in his duties. However, it may not be as straightforward as the headlines suggest.

Could the reporting of proceedings of the Scottish Social Services Council have been a bit selective? Where is the plea in mitigation, people are asking?

There was little if anything under the headlines about ignoring vulnerable children that he may in fact have been trying to deal with enormous personal stress during the period in question. I think having his wife dying from a brain tumour may be considered severe stress, don’t you?

Why was that not discussed – or reported, especially as several Highland newspapers recently ran pieces about his fundraising efforts for Macmillan and Maggie’s under self-explanatory headlines? For example: http://www.north-star-news.co.uk/News/Stephens-trek-pays-tribute-to-dying-wife-6793162.htm

During the period when so many people at Highland Council are now claiming they were so dissatisfied with his work, Mr Mackay was actually commended by them. Maybe they re the incompetent ones then? It’s on the council’s website. You can take it off now. I have copied it.

More grimly, Mr Mackay was previously employed by the council at Lochaber. While there, he had to carry out an investigation into the conduct of certain social workers in Easter Ross. His report nailed certain people. He then had to go and work there. Whatever his own admitted failures, some of us would like to know what inquiries have been done to ensure that he has not been – as some suspect -  the victim of a vendetta by some of the people close to those he highlighted in his no-holds-barred report?

Highland Council chiefs claim the authority is a caring employer and has procedures to support employees in crisis.  If that is true, I am sure they will be in touch with me shortly to give me chapter and verse about all the support they gave this man when they realised his family was falling apart through the scourge of cancer.

They had plenty time and they won’t have forgotten his wife Pat was diagnosed in September 2009.  I have noted, and so must they, that the accusations they made against him were between 2006 and August 2010.

→ 4 Comments

Posted in council, Crime, Government, Highland Council, Media, politics, Scotland