robbain
04-Oct-06, 09:18
This was in the Northern Times of 29 September, 2006
Power base in Golspie?
By Caroline McMorran
Published: 29 September, 2006
THE hugely controversial decision to spend £5 million on turning the former Sutherland Technical School at Golspie into centralised Highland Council office accommodation could be about to pay dividends for Sutherland.
The century-old former school at Drummuie has been widely tipped to become the administrative centre for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross - one of three new "operational management areas" being set up by the council under an extensive reorganisation to be put in place before the local elections next year.
If that was to be the case - and officials are adamant that nothing has even been discussed, let alone finalised - it would be good news for Sutherland, boosting the county's profile, but would likely cause opposition from Caithness, currently an area in its own right, and also perhaps from Easter Ross.
Speculation that Drummuie may have a starring role to play in the future has been voiced before, but intensified this week following an official announcement in the wake of a special meeting at Gairloch last Friday about the local authority's planned operating structure under the new regime.
Three new "operational management areas" are to be created from an amalgamation of the present relatively autonomous eight areas under the Highland Council umbrella - Badenoch and Strathspey; Caithness; City of Inverness; Lochaber; Nairn; Ross and Cromarty; Skye and Lochalsh; and Sutherland.
The three new areas will be entitled North Highland, Mid and West Highland, and East Highland. They will roughly follow the boundaries of the Highland parliamentary constituencies.
North Highland will encompass Caithness, Sutherland, Tain and the Cromarty Firth including Alness, Invergordon, Evanton and Easter Ross. Its southernmost boundary will stop at "Mineral Bridge", just north of Dingwall. Mid and West Highland takes in Skye, Lochaber, Wester and Mid Ross, and the Black Isle. East Highland will cover Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
A council spokesman said: "Council services will reorganise their management arrangements to reflect these new area boundaries, and the proposals for the management and staffing arrangements of each service will be submitted to the relevant strategic committees in the cycle leading up to the council meeting on December 14."
Drummuie has emerged as the front runner to become the management centre of the North Highland area simply because of its central geographical location in the new area and the fact it is a large building and most likely to have the accommodation required.
But this week local officials were reticent to comment on the prospect.
Sutherland area administrator Liam O'Neill said no decision has yet been taken and he was not aware of any discussions in connection with Drummuie.
Sutherland area manager Graeme McLaughlin told the NT: "At this stage no decision has been taken where any administrative functions will be located in the North Highland area. The council has just started the re-structure process, so it is a little early for decisions on where the administrative and management functions will be based.
"The council is committed to continue basing the staff who provide services to the public in the communities they serve, so the re-structure is mainly about revising our management of services."
Should a power base be established at Drummuie, it would be a feather in the cap for Golspie councillor Ian Ross who consistently backed the multi-million-pound upgrade and refurbishment which is currently under way, in the face of criticism from fellow councillors and members of the public that it was a waste of taxpayers' money.
He said earlier this week: "I fought very hard to ensure we did have this development, and that Sutherland and East Sutherland in particular was well placed as part of these changes.
"I have certainly not seen anything that formally proposes Drummuie as a management centre and I can only make the observation that if we have substantial office accommodation in East Sutherland, then it is wellplaced in terms of the future."
Dornoch councillor Duncan Allan, who opposed the Drummuie project, said this week he presumed the £5 million expenditure had from the outset been geared towards making Drummuie a candidate for a management centre.
But he believed it might not be of any benefit to Sutherland.
"The so-called headquarters is a nonsense. What does it mean? Probably just a bit of licensing because planning is going to go and housing is going to go.
"What would this so-called North Highland centre do? The foundation of the new Highland Council is going to be the ward.
"It would be much better if Drummuie was turned back into a technical school. We desperately need vocational training - even the Labour Party is realising that now.
"It's ironic, is it not, that when the chief minister states we should bring back technical schools that we should have squandered £5 million on our technical school to turn it into an office. A huge opportunity has been lost."
Tongue and Farr councillor Sandy Mackay said that never in his 16 years with the local authority had he known so much secrecy to surround a project as there had been in the case of Drummuie.
"I know absolutely nothing about what is going on at Drummuie,” he said. "I am completely in the dark, and I was one of the main supporters of it from the very outset.
"I doubt if any of the elected members know any more than I do. It is officials that are running the outfit."
With the introduction of proportional voting for local government elections, starting next May, Highland Council is setting up 22 new multi-member wards.
The council spokesman added: "Decision making on policy and resource allocation will continue to be made by the council at Highland level, and operational service delivery will focus primarily at multi-member ward level.
"The council agreed in June that multi-member wards will be administered by ward managers, who will report to a corporate manager serving each of the three new operational management areas.
"It was also agreed that the strong civic tradition within the Highlands, particularly in Inverness, Nairn, Lochaber and Caithness, should be retained."
* Commenting on the progress of refurbishment work at Drummuie, area manager Graeme McLaughlin said: "The contractor for the office work has started on site.
"The contractor for the road works has also been appointed and work on this will start in the very near future."
What's is our councillors views on this, nothing has been mentioned, can Bill give a reply about this ?
Power base in Golspie?
By Caroline McMorran
Published: 29 September, 2006
THE hugely controversial decision to spend £5 million on turning the former Sutherland Technical School at Golspie into centralised Highland Council office accommodation could be about to pay dividends for Sutherland.
The century-old former school at Drummuie has been widely tipped to become the administrative centre for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross - one of three new "operational management areas" being set up by the council under an extensive reorganisation to be put in place before the local elections next year.
If that was to be the case - and officials are adamant that nothing has even been discussed, let alone finalised - it would be good news for Sutherland, boosting the county's profile, but would likely cause opposition from Caithness, currently an area in its own right, and also perhaps from Easter Ross.
Speculation that Drummuie may have a starring role to play in the future has been voiced before, but intensified this week following an official announcement in the wake of a special meeting at Gairloch last Friday about the local authority's planned operating structure under the new regime.
Three new "operational management areas" are to be created from an amalgamation of the present relatively autonomous eight areas under the Highland Council umbrella - Badenoch and Strathspey; Caithness; City of Inverness; Lochaber; Nairn; Ross and Cromarty; Skye and Lochalsh; and Sutherland.
The three new areas will be entitled North Highland, Mid and West Highland, and East Highland. They will roughly follow the boundaries of the Highland parliamentary constituencies.
North Highland will encompass Caithness, Sutherland, Tain and the Cromarty Firth including Alness, Invergordon, Evanton and Easter Ross. Its southernmost boundary will stop at "Mineral Bridge", just north of Dingwall. Mid and West Highland takes in Skye, Lochaber, Wester and Mid Ross, and the Black Isle. East Highland will cover Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
A council spokesman said: "Council services will reorganise their management arrangements to reflect these new area boundaries, and the proposals for the management and staffing arrangements of each service will be submitted to the relevant strategic committees in the cycle leading up to the council meeting on December 14."
Drummuie has emerged as the front runner to become the management centre of the North Highland area simply because of its central geographical location in the new area and the fact it is a large building and most likely to have the accommodation required.
But this week local officials were reticent to comment on the prospect.
Sutherland area administrator Liam O'Neill said no decision has yet been taken and he was not aware of any discussions in connection with Drummuie.
Sutherland area manager Graeme McLaughlin told the NT: "At this stage no decision has been taken where any administrative functions will be located in the North Highland area. The council has just started the re-structure process, so it is a little early for decisions on where the administrative and management functions will be based.
"The council is committed to continue basing the staff who provide services to the public in the communities they serve, so the re-structure is mainly about revising our management of services."
Should a power base be established at Drummuie, it would be a feather in the cap for Golspie councillor Ian Ross who consistently backed the multi-million-pound upgrade and refurbishment which is currently under way, in the face of criticism from fellow councillors and members of the public that it was a waste of taxpayers' money.
He said earlier this week: "I fought very hard to ensure we did have this development, and that Sutherland and East Sutherland in particular was well placed as part of these changes.
"I have certainly not seen anything that formally proposes Drummuie as a management centre and I can only make the observation that if we have substantial office accommodation in East Sutherland, then it is wellplaced in terms of the future."
Dornoch councillor Duncan Allan, who opposed the Drummuie project, said this week he presumed the £5 million expenditure had from the outset been geared towards making Drummuie a candidate for a management centre.
But he believed it might not be of any benefit to Sutherland.
"The so-called headquarters is a nonsense. What does it mean? Probably just a bit of licensing because planning is going to go and housing is going to go.
"What would this so-called North Highland centre do? The foundation of the new Highland Council is going to be the ward.
"It would be much better if Drummuie was turned back into a technical school. We desperately need vocational training - even the Labour Party is realising that now.
"It's ironic, is it not, that when the chief minister states we should bring back technical schools that we should have squandered £5 million on our technical school to turn it into an office. A huge opportunity has been lost."
Tongue and Farr councillor Sandy Mackay said that never in his 16 years with the local authority had he known so much secrecy to surround a project as there had been in the case of Drummuie.
"I know absolutely nothing about what is going on at Drummuie,” he said. "I am completely in the dark, and I was one of the main supporters of it from the very outset.
"I doubt if any of the elected members know any more than I do. It is officials that are running the outfit."
With the introduction of proportional voting for local government elections, starting next May, Highland Council is setting up 22 new multi-member wards.
The council spokesman added: "Decision making on policy and resource allocation will continue to be made by the council at Highland level, and operational service delivery will focus primarily at multi-member ward level.
"The council agreed in June that multi-member wards will be administered by ward managers, who will report to a corporate manager serving each of the three new operational management areas.
"It was also agreed that the strong civic tradition within the Highlands, particularly in Inverness, Nairn, Lochaber and Caithness, should be retained."
* Commenting on the progress of refurbishment work at Drummuie, area manager Graeme McLaughlin said: "The contractor for the office work has started on site.
"The contractor for the road works has also been appointed and work on this will start in the very near future."
What's is our councillors views on this, nothing has been mentioned, can Bill give a reply about this ?