City council in disarray

As a resident of the region run by Aberdeenshire Council, I feel particularly fortunate to be outside the dominion of its council neighbour, Aberdeen City, where the scale of financial debt has just been further escalated by disclosure – up from £27 million to £50 million.

But a distinction should, in my view, be drawn between councillors and officials, something in the manner of the sitcom Yes, Minister which showed UK national government being effectively run by Whitehall civil servants and not by elected MPs. The same applies to Aberdeen City Council.

A spate of behavioural misdemeanours that has included a sex romp behind a portable screen, an official being brought to court for appearing naked on the street in the early hours of the morning, e-mails between officials bordering on the suggestively obscene – all have been subject to publicity in the newspapers over the past few years – years, in fact, that overlap any admin power shift arising from the last local government election results. In other words, for the common denominator in this instance, read – officials.

There has also been, over this same period, a reported exodus of officials from the city council to the adjacent shire council. Some have reportedly ascribed this to morale factors etc. Not to mention that the neighbouring Aberdeenshire Council has been aglow with praise from various quarters for its performances in website service to a range of more mundane run-of-the-mill council services.

Even the shire's waste collection service is, in my view, a model compared to its city neighbour. Across the board, the comparison reflects recent audit opinion.

Suffice to say that there would appear to be a higher than normal incidence of liaisons-at-work between city staff officials, leading in several instances to marital disruption and family combustion. And, it has appeared, all such occurring in the context of a council that it is only too clearly now coming to light as having being remiss in matters of budgetary control etc. Should it be too surprising when the focus, it seems, of too many officials has been on members of the other sex etc, during their work time, and not on looking after the general good of Aberdeen City?

IAN JOHNSTONE

Forman Drive

Peterhead, Aberdeenshire

Not a week goes by in Aberdeen without some new revelations of the financial mess that the City of Aberdeen finds itself in and, like an episode of Faulty Towers, it just gets worse and worse. Unlike Faulty Towers, however, it is not funny as the citizens see closure of sporting facilities, needy and disabled groups having their funding withdrawn and the latest financial black hole now reappraised by the city's senior accountant amounting to a massive £50 million.

John Swinney, the Scottish Government finance secretary, must follow through with his threat to call in the administrators to run the city as the current Liberal/SNP administration has completely lost control, and with city council employees morale at an all time low it is time for some drastic action.

DENNIS GRATTAN

Mugiemoss Road

Aberdeen