The status of community councils - open letter to the City of Edinburgh Council

Dear Council Officers and Members

I am writing to you about the entries on the new council website in relation to community councils in my capacity of Edinburgh area representative for the Association of Scottish Community Councils (elected from April 2010) and I am copying this to the chair and secretary of the Edinburgh Association of Community Councils.

1. The first page describes community councils as voluntary groups. This gives a mistaken account. A more accurate description of them would be local groups established by election under local government legislation to represent the views of their communities to local authorities and any other organisation or interest that affects the well being of their local area.

2. The next page rightly says that community councils have an important role in local democracy in representing the views of local people to neighbourhood partnerships and the local authority. But their remit is not confined to that - it is potentially much larger than that since they can take up any matter concerning the well being of their local area.

3. I cannot see any reference on the council website to the City council's scheme for community councils which governs their operation - this is an indispensible guide to community councils and those who would participate in them. If it is available on the website can you give me the webpage reference?

Council officers and elected members will find a considerable amount of useful information about community councils on the website of the Association of Scottish Community Councils (www.ascc.org.uk), to which your website makes a useful link, and I would refer you to the documents section and particularly 'What community councils are and what they are not'.

I am sure the city council would recognise the important role that community councils play in representing the voice of local communities in the city to the city council and other public and private agencies that affect the well being of their localities in an era of reductions in public services and it would certainly assist community councils in doing their work if a more accurate statement of their statutory basis and powers was to be found on the first and subsequent pages of the City Council website referring to community councils.

Norman Bonney
Edinburgh area representative Association of Scottish Community Councils

New blog on ASCC constitutional issues

Readers may be aware of the increasing recent focus in this blog upon constitutional issues confronting the Association of Scottish Community Councils.

In order to redirect concern on this blog to other issues confronting Scotland's community councils in the current era of austerity a new blog has been created for the constitutional reform campaign. You can visit it at http://www.reformascc.blogspot.com/