Edinburgh Sucks! | New Leader Vol. III

Alistar Frater

New Leader Vol. III

By The Basa ⋅ July 10, 2006 ⋅

There is only one of the council leadership contenders left to highlight some of the problems they have in their current jobs.

Again, the third contender in a row is yet another councillor surrounded in controversy. Firstly, what does Councillor Rasputin say he stands for:

On transport Rasputin goes for:

• £1m for new subsidised bus services, opening up new routes and improving frequency - more than double the current spending.
• Go ahead with trams.
• Develop the city car club.
• More pedestrianisation where appropriate.
• “Maximise opportunities for alternatives to the car without excluding the car.”

What a list of twaddle. The subsidised bus services and new routes should go from the Councillor’s houses to the City Chambers, maybe we can save that money on the taxi fares.

Again with the Trams - against the wishes of the electorate if one is to read the local press to see the opposition and knowing that you will not be in power to see the project through. Why not just put it to a referendum and ask the people - otherwise, leave it until the next administration takes power and let them decide whether to spend this amount of money on it - Let’s not sign lots of contracts where it is possible that the next administration have to pay taxpayer money to get out of the contracts.

Developing the city car club is something that could have been done at any time over the past couple of decades but you and your lot decided not to bother. Why promise it for the future when you couldn’t deliver it in the past when you had the opportunity.

“Maximise opportunities for alternatives to the car without excluding the car.” - sounds like the councillors favourite phrase “get a taxi” - or maybe they are going to give us all motorised rickshaws.

On Development/Economy:

• Major review of the city’s ten-year development strategy. “We have done incredible things so far through tourism, the financial sector and education.
• “It’s when you are doing well you need to ask what do we do next

The council have zero say in the financial sector. What is built up in the financial sector is built up by the financial sector. Why is he claiming the credit for what private enterprise does? The same with tourism - tourists came here before this abysmal administration were in power and they will continue to come when they have been flushed down the toilet. Don’t go with bullshit claims to which you have no say over. Maybe if he’s elected, he should shred the city’s ten-year development strategy because if it is no better than the last ten years it is nothing more than toilet paper.

His second point about doing so well, he is definitely on drugs. This administration has done brilliantly on the major projects. Housing Transfer - thrown out by your own constituents; Congestion charge - thrown out by your own constituents; New council HQ - too bloody small to fit in all the staff; New buildings in Edinburgh - totally crap boxes. If you really want to know what to do next, look at the staff that report to you in Children & Families and fire them because they are fraudsters.

On Education:

• Keep building new schools.
• Develop personal learning plans, where each pupil has a mapped out educational “journey” through school.
• Job or further education place for every pupil.
• Improve sport at all levels.

This candidate has had many years to improve the education of the city’s pupils but only last week we find out that the levels of reading and maths in the city’s schools are among the worst in Scotland. If one of his teachers were grading him, I would think that even a D- would be too generous.

When he speaks about building new schools, what he really means is sell of the schools which have huge playing fields and big tracts of land around them and then put up a box which will at most last 40 years. If that option is not available then we’ll use green belt land to build the new schools on, and sell the land from the other schools to devleopers.

Imporove sport at all levels is a joke - they have about 22 years since 1984 to do that but instead sport has gone downhill steadily since then. How can we believe what you will do in the future when you had the opportunity to do it in the past and failed.

UNFORTUNATELY, Ewan ‘Rasputin’ or ‘the hippy rev’ Aitken may not get far in the leadership race if his department falls apart over the summer now that his staff in the field have more time to work on their strategy.

Aitken, together with Lord Provost Lesley Hinds have been covering up fraud since 2003. Cllr Aitken has already told labour colleagues that the unanimous tribunal judgment was a mistake. What he omitted to tell the group is that he knew in 2004 that the external auditors had raised serious financial/personnel concerns re ELLP and the Wabster trio. In fact he knew that the allegations the whistleblower made were completely true. According to a source on the ELLP Board it was discussed at board level and Cllr Aitken wanted the project closed down quietly to save the board’s reputation.

The Agenda B paper is so damming of David Hillson and the Wabsterites, the legal advice the board was given, was to sack them immediately. However, frauderster Rosendale (Company Secretary in charge of Financial and Personnel matters) and Aitken refused to take that advice . The question people should ask is WHY? What do these people not want exposed?

Rosendale lied to the current Leader of the Council so it will be no problem to lie to the next one if Aitken is rewarded.

In the words of Aitken and Rosendale’s own staff:

We have started an alternative investigation, we obtained the financial reports of ELLP for 2003 and 2004 from Companies House. What damning reading. How can Councillors of any party allow this to continue. It states that Mike Rosendale transferred money twice out of Changing Children’s Services and Childcare Partnership up to £138,000 into ELLP and the auditors don’t have any evidence of what it was used for. That money is for front line services not for Mr Rosendale to use to hide irregularities. Please note we discovered he did this after the external auditors in the previous year stated that £265,000 COULD NOT BE EVIDENCED AS BEING SPENT PROPERLY or what it had been spent on.It also states that the auditors alerted Company Secretary (MIKE ROSENDALE) to their concerns in December 2003. Why did he not inform the council and councillors? Answer: he had to hide the malpractice because he didn’t tell the ELLP board that the whistleblower had reported malpractice in 2002. Companies House papers tells us that Wabster was created in January 2003. So after the Mike Rosendale was warned of irreguralities he did nothing. Well not quite, because we are all well aware now he started a smear campagin against the whistleblower then tried to sack him for alerting Cllr Anderson to attempted fraud. If we were able to obtain the papers for a couple of pounds from Company House. WHAT IS THE DIFFICULTLY IN REPORTING THIS INFORMATION TO FULL COUNCIL MR INCH. WE BELEIVE IT IS TO ENSURE THE LABOUR GROUP LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE IS NOT DERAILED BY THE PUBLIC AND STAFF DEMANDING CLLR AITKEN RESIGNS AND MR ROSENDALE IS SACKED WITH DAVID HILLSON.

If this is the beginning of the C&F staff’s investigation, it will be interesting to see the end of it.