Councillor ousted from board amid secrecy row

The ruling SNP-led administration is expected to replace Labour member Fiona Howard (Helensburgh Central) with the Harbour Board’s chair under the last Lib-Dem and Tory led coalition, independent councillor Andrew Kain (Oban South & The Isles), at the full council today (Thursday September 26).

 

The meeting will also see an opposition vote to make public a secret progress report on the council’s bid to take control of Oban Bay, one of Scotland’s busiest harbours, as a municipal port.

 

Council officers are drafting a Harbour Revision Order (HRO) for Scottish Ministers to assent. A consultation on the draft HRO, held over Christmas and New Year, led to more than 100 objections, including from CalMac, CMAL, Oban Community Council and Oban Community Harbour Development Association (OCHDA). Despite council responses, not one was withdrawn.

 

In April, the council’s administration changed hands by a cut of cards, resulting in four new members on the eight-strong Harbour Board, which meets quarterly. None have had an opportunity to scrutinise these "record" number of concerns since the Oban HRO was last on the board’s agenda on January 25, said its opposition spokesperson Councillor Andrew Vennard, Conservative, Oban North and Lorn. 

 

Frustrated by the ongoing update delays, in August Councillor Vennard and two other board members, Councillors Maurice Corry, Conservative, Lomond North, and Liz McCabe, Independent, Bute, complained to the council’s chief executive Pippa Milne.

 

When the trio saw the Oban HRO was still not on the agenda for the Harbour Board on September 12, the day before the council’s written representation was due to be submitted to Transport Scotland, they asked for it to be added urgently.

 

However, the request was rejected - twice - by the board’s chairperson Councillor Ross Moreland, Dunoon, Liberal Democrat, who argued it had no special reasons for urgency and there was a briefing note going to members.

 

Councillor Vennard, a local solicitor, said the council’s executive director and finance officer Kirsty Flanagan did not want the note published or discussed by the harbour board members.

 

"This means we cannot currently answer many of the queries raised by constituents," he said. "[It] does not contain any information which is confidential or commercially sensitive."

 

He made another complaint to Pippa Milne and has proposed a further motion at today’s council asking the chamber to vote for an extra Harbour Board meeting on October 17 to openly consider the briefing note.

 

At the last Harbour Board on September 12, councillors Vennard, Corry and McCabe tried to force the council to publish annual accounts for all its eight statutory harbour authorities, including the new one in Oban Bay, as required by the Harbours Act 1964.

 

Councillor Vennard said: "We were pleased to see the Labour councillor Fiona Howard supported our motion." 

 

But this fell too when the vote tied 4-4 and Councillor Moreland used the chairperson’s casting vote to push through his own amendment, seconded by vice chairperson Councillor John Armour, SNP, South Kintyre, "asking the chief financial officer, who is both qualified, and employed by the council, to advise on financial matters, to submit a report detailing the finances of our piers and harbours".

 

After the split vote, Councillor Howard told us she had been removed from the Harbour Board by the administration, adding: "I will be replaced by Andrew Kain, assuming the full council ratifies the decision on September 26. I have not been given a reason. I can’t second guess the thinking of the chairperson and vice-chairperson."

 

OCHDA’s chairperson Phil Hamerton asked: "What price openness and transparency in Government?" 

 

At the Oban, Lorn & The Isles (OLI) Area Committee on September 11, Mr Hamerton tried to get it involved in the decisions of the Harbour Board. But the chairperson, councillor Julie McKenzie, SNP, Oban North & Lorn, replied it had "no remit". 

 

"We can take a view to a committee," she said, "but we have a duty to take a balanced view and it cannot be only the voices that shout the loudest."