Plans to transfer community centres across West Lothian have caused 15 months of stress and anxiety, said councillors this week.
As an Autumn deadline looms West Lothian’s Council’s Executive heard frustrations from around the chamber about lack of clarity in choices being faced.
The only obvious certainty in the long-running campaign to save £1m a year is that most centres will have fewer staff and fewer opening hours as the majority of buildings will likely come under council control. Only around half of the £1m has so far been found.
Lib Dem Councillor Sally Pattle said many involved in community centres were “deeply concerned” about the future.
SNP depute leader Pauline Stafford told the meeting there had been little clarity on the process from the start.
And Labour veteran Tom Conn said there was "little clear water” between the choices of lease offered to management committees.
Julie Whitelaw, the Head of Housing Customer and Building Services, told the meeting that only eight management committees have to date chosen the three options initially offered of Community Asset Transfer, a full lease (FRI) and a lease with recharge costs (IRI).
In the first option the management committee takes full ownership of the building. In the second the committee takes on a full lease with responsibility for all repairs and in the third it takes responsibility of the internal repair and maintenance but the council, as landlord, can charge carry out external repairs.
The 26 centres which have chosen none of the above could now be taken into council control. A report said: “Under this model the operation and management of the facilities would no longer be undertaken by a Management Committee and the lease would be terminated and council staff would operate and manage the facilities.”
This council control model was stressed as the least favoured by council officers and was only introduced as an option because so few management committees had taken up the first three options.
Councillor Stafford told the meeting: “The question arises as to why this was not on the table from the outset, as many would have opted for it then. The parameters of the first three options has caused untold stress not least to those running the centres, but also to user groups who feared the loss of these spaces that are central to their lives.”
She stressed that she recognised “ the huge shift” put in by council staff and said her criticism was directed at the administration.
“The SNP group has questions about what the council management would look like. The worry is that community centres would remain nominally open but reduced hours and excessive room booking costs would effectively make them inaccessible to many of the user groups.”
Councillor Conn criticised the SNP’s “party political broadcast” and pointed that the lack of funding from Edinburgh as at the root of why the council was having to undertake the process. He branded the party's stance as an “abdication of responsibility.”
He said the last 15 months had shown that the status quo “was not fine” and a better operating platform for community centres would be developed as a result but he maintained.
But he added that management committees would not see the distinctions between the one type of lease and another if the council could recover costs from management committees if it carried out repairs.
He said: “There is no clear water. I respect officers may have a different position. I don’t think this gives a clarity to the management committees that this is an option that they should sign up to and it gives them comfort, particularly when it comes to other related property costs.
"If the roof falls in, does that mean it is going to be repaired by the council and if it is, is there going to be a recharge. I don't think the paper fully addresses that.”
Councillor Pattle said: “As this drags on, the amount of negative impact this has on staff and the volunteers who make up the management committees is only increasing.
“The concerns raised today were raised at the beginning.
“Each of these centres is individual. It's very likely a bespoke solution will have to be found for each of them and that doesn’t seem to have been taken into consideration by officers until now.
“I really question whether a realistic forecast of future usage has been taken into consideration with the council operated model. I also question whether they really expect volunteers to be part of these building user groups going forward and that leads to being enormously concerned about what that means for the viability of these sites in future.
“I’m not reassured by the report today that West Lothian Council is moving quickly enough to provide answers to the community centres. The staff I am in contact with are deeply worried about what the future holds for them.”
Councillor Susan Manion, the depute council leader said that council management was not the option the council wanted.
“What we have tried to do is find real viable options for the centres that keep them in the hands of local community and in the management committees .
“We have tried at each stage to ensure there is clarity. We have tried to be as clear as possible. We do not want to be in a position where the council is managing. We want to support the other options where possible Option 3 gets the right balance response because management still stays in the hands of the community. There is a lot of work yet to be done.”
Chairing the meeting, Council leader Lawrence Fitzpatrick paid tribute to the work of officers on the plan. He said staff had given up an “enormous amount of family time.” attending meetings with the community.
He pointed to neighbouring Falkirk, where the SNP run council had closed community buildings to cut costs.
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