Edinburgh Council just isn't listening to local people – Helen Martin

The report by Audit Scotland’s Accounts Commission had a lot of praise for the City of Edinburgh Council.

Edinburgh Council leader Adam McVey focussed on the positives in the Accounts Commission's report about its performance (Picture: Ian Georgeson)

Before the pandemic, and despite its large debt, it got gold stars for the economy, employment, and improving services.

But as many people have felt frustrated and complained about, there was a polite emphasis that residents should be heard.

A great statement from the Commission’s interim chair Elma Murray, was: “Community empowerment is about allowing communities to help inform and drive the things a council should be doing much more quickly. What councils should be doing is bringing communities into their decision-making processes.”

She added that the council does a lot of consultation with communities, but then doesn’t feed back to those communities, and residents that provide feedback don’t get to hear what it has accomplished.

The Commission’s press statement included that the council “can do more to maximise its potential to improve the city and the lives of local people” and that acting swiftly on this report will support their ambitions to improve the lives of Edinburgh residents.

To put it more bluntly from my point of view, the council coalition doesn’t listen to communities and doesn’t believe they have any clout. They believe election puts them in dominating power on every decision. Pleasing the majority of people is irrelevant and so is including other elected councillors who could offer constructive opinions.

It wasn’t surprising that council leader Adam McVey focused on the gold stars and not so much on the black marks.

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