COUNCIL COMMENT Getting prepared for the duty of how the council will be spending the cash

In recent weeks we in the North Lanarkshire SNP group have formed a budget group.

The budget itself will not be decided until the middle of February, but obviously this is not a short-term process, and in the coming weeks our budget group will be speaking – and listening carefully to – the assistant chief executives’ thoughts on their own departments and responsibilities. And in particular where savings can be made.

Only at the end of this process can the budget be finalised. This is what we have done for some years now, and will continue to do so.

In the last couple of weeks we have been attacked for removing our members from the finance sounding board, a committee which contained Labour and Tory members and also listened to assistant chief executives. But we will now form our budget the way we have in previous years.

One saving we will not make, however, will be to cut school transport for young children.

We almost stopped the cut to the primary transport with the support of the Tories at the recent education committee.

The vote was 17-17, but the casting vote of the Labour Convener enabled the proposed change to the primary and secondary transport to go out to consultation.

We will continue to speak out against these cuts; make sure you do too, and please do so in the consultation.

In my column last month I mentioned the SNP group had managed to secure a special council meeting to discuss the bins fiasco.

We felt it was the right thing to do as, thanks to Labour and the Tories not supporting us, we were unable to debate the matter at the previous council meeting.

Despite the meeting, Labour still refuse to take responsibility for the problems caused with the way they introduced the new re-cycling process. Let’s hope the remaining problems are cleared up quickly.

It was a great pleasure recently to attend the annual Remembrance service at Airdrie War Memorial.

I always find it a very emotional service, and will never forget the sacrifice those brave service men and women made for us.

Not long before Remembrance weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting up with a group of Russian school children who were over from St Petersburg with their teachers, school directors, and others.

We spent a good afternoon in Motherwell Heritage Centre listening to them doing their own take on the works of Robert Burns.

Earlier, seven of the children showed us photographs and spoke of their great grandfathers from the Second World War, where they served and how proud they were of them. As I said earlier, remembrance is a very emotional time.

One event I did unfortunately miss was the recent politician of the year awards in Edinburgh.

One of the successful nominees was Alex Neil MSP, and I couldn’t be more delighted for him.

Since he started working in Airdrie as a list MSP in 2007, and then as the constituency representative for Airdrie and Shotts since 2011, I know of no politician who works harder.

Our budget group will be speaking - and listening carefully to - the assistant chief executives’ thoughts on their own departments and responsibilies

Award winner MSP Alex Neil