TooExtra Going back to the City of Edinburgh Council point, they are about to have a new chief exec and are in the middle of a transformation programme which is going to result in more than 900 jobs being deleted, mainly at the higher/middle management levels. The Scottish Government will have been involved in commissioning this review. It is well recognised that the place needs shaking up, and it's about to get it.
I don't think anyone who has much realism about them really believes that. City of Edinburgh Council are resurrecting their fraudulent statutory notices scheme. They brought in Dame Sue Bruce to great fanfare a couple of years ago, and even she, who turned around City of Aberdeen Council which had similar problems and was nearly bankrupt, had to admit defeat.
The statutory notices scandal makes the poll tax pale by comparison. You have old ladies living in one bedroom tenement flats that wouldn't even be liable for roof repairs under their title deeds having bills of £30,000 to be paid within 28 days sprung on them, for dubious workmanship, inflated work and even work not done. Try and sell up? Not possible, if you have a £60,000 statutory notice over your property which has been unresolved for 11 years because of the scandal (a real case, there are many more examples, but because Scottish local government isn't properly accountable, its not possible to even quantify the problem).
The doublespeak that typifies City of Edinburgh Council's official documents has to be read to believed, although its pretty hard to read. Unfortunately the new Chief Exec seems to deliver official documents in a similarly obtrusive tone, which leads me to suspect they have simply appointed a master in cover-up to avoid sorting out the problem.
If you are an SNP supporter and unaware or ignoring the statutory notice problem, or problems with public sector fraud in Scotland, while wittering on about a "fair and more just society", then shame on you.