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The City of Edinburgh Council

Council will meet next week to appoint Provost and other office bearers

May 11, 2012 12:59 pm

The first meeting of the newly elected council will take place next Thursday, 17 May 2012, at the City Chambers, to deal with the installation of the Convener of the council (also known as The Lord Provost) and the officials who will sit on the various committees. So it will largely be a routine, administrative affair, except perhaps for those involved! The meatier version of the council will then convene on 24 May to discuss real council business.

The meeting will be chaired by Chief Executive, Sue Bruce, until the new Lord Provost is elected. As we reported to you earlier this week, it was agreed that the Lord Provost would be nominated by the Labour Group and it will be Councillor Donald Wilson who represents Sighthill/Gorgie Ward, who is charged with this honour.

The rest of the meeting will deal with the appointment of a Deputy Lord Provost to be nominated by the SNP group who will run the council in coalition with Labour. Then the council will decide if they are going to choose any Bailies, and, if so, will appoint them along with the members of the various committees which are required to deal with council business. These include the Policy and Strategy Committee, the Audit Committee, the Executive Committees (which include the Education, Children and Families committee, Health, Social Care and Housing committee, Transport, Infrastructure and Environment Committee, Culture and Leisure Committee, Economic Development Committee and the Finance and Resources Committee), the Planning Committee/DevelopmentManagement Sub-Committee and the Regulatory Committee, the Joint Committees and Joint Boards and the Licensing Board. The largest of these committees have 17 members, and the rest are of varying sizes depending on the importance and extent of the work which they will deal with.

The office of Bailie is an honorary title bestowed upon senior councillors, and bailies have a ceremonial role which allows them to stand in for the Lord Provost or Deputy Provost if needed.

The meeting will also appoint religious and teacher representatives to the Education, Children and Families Committee. There have to be three representatives of religious interests, and so far the nominations are:- A Craig Duncan for the Church of Scotland and Ted Brack for the Roman Catholic Church. There are three nominations for the third position:- Rev Thomas Coupar from The Robin Chapel, Eric John Scott from Carrubbers Christian Centre and Captain Alison Friday from The Salvation Army, and only one of those can be chosen.

The two nominees for the position of teacher members are Allan Crosbie from James Gillespie’s High School, and Raymond George Simpson from Queensferry Community High School. So the only real decision to be made next Thursday morning will be to appoint the third religious representative from the three nominees and the other positions where there are only the required number of nominees will require to be rubber-stamped.

And just to remind you who the 58 new councillors are:-

1 Almond Lindsay Paterson Alastair Gordon Shields Norman James Work

2 Pentland Hills Bill Henderson Ricky Henderson Dominic Heslop

3 Drum Brae/Gyle Robert Aldridge Ron Cairns Karen Keil

4 Forth Steve Cardownie Cammy Day Allan George Jackson Vicki Redpath

5 Inverleith Nigel Bagshaw Gavin Barrie Lesley Hinds Iain Whyte

6 Corstorphine/ Murrayfield Jeremy Ross Balfour Paul Edie Frank Ross

7 Sighthill/Gorgie Denis Charles Dixon Catherine Fullerton Eric Milligan Donald C Wilson

8 Colinton/ Fairmilehead Elaine Aitken Richard Lewis Jason Geoffrey Rust

9 Fountainbridge/ Craiglockhart Andrew Burns Gavin Corbett David Key

10 Meadows/ Morningside Paul Godzik Sandy Howat Melanie Main Mark McInnes

11 City Centre Karen Doran Joanna Mowat Alasdair Rankin