Notebook by Bill Heaney
For the first time in almost two years members of the public will be able to access West Dunbartonshire Council’s Church Street headquarters, although some Covid-19 protocols remain in place.
It said that this week in a report with with large tabloid headlines on the digital news site shared by The Daily Record and the Lennox Herald, but the offices looked firmly closed when I passed them in the car around 11am on Thursday.
There was certainly no “Welcome Back” on the steps of the old Burgh Hall and if it was open then I would have had to put on my investigative journalist hat to find my way in.
There was a a sign in Gaelic though – it didn’t say failte go council, but the Record story did say that “some Covid-19 protocols remain in place”.
It struck me that to qualify to get in the door local people would have found it more difficult than desperate Ukrainian refugees have to get into the hubristic Home Secretary Priti Patel’s unwelcoming UK.
It’s hard to believe that West Dunbartonshire Council would make things difficult for people. I have only been locked out of Council meetings once at Clydebank Town Hall and thrown out at the old Dumbarton Burgh Hall.
Pensioners though have been shut out of public meetings and confronted with security people to ensure they ventured no further than the front door.
So, if West Dunbartonshire Council offices really did reopen to the public yesterday for the first time in almost two years, it wasn’t as obvious as it should have been to obtain access to them.
We were told measures brought in in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic saw access to the Church Street headquarters heavily restricted, with staff working from home as per Scottish Government guidance.
And that a phased-return to the office started in early February, with staff now back in the not really fit for purpose building – and other council workplaces – as restrictions continue to be loosened.
Victoria Rogers and Joyce White, of West Dunbartonshire Council.
At a meeting of the council’s audit committee, Victoria Rogers, WDC’s chief officer for people and technology, who is widely tipped to take over from the current CEO, Joyce White, said that the reopening was on schedule – but that the public would initially have to book meetings [with officials] in advance.
She is reported as having said: “In respect of service delivery, public access is expected to begin from March 7 and will initially be on an appointment-only basis, to ensure the safety of all.”
A report to the committee added: “As things settle, patterns may emerge around best practice for different activities and protocols/guidance and training will be adapted and/or developed to reflect and support this.”
Some Covid measures will remain in place, with everyone visiting asked to adhere to one-metre social distancing and to continue wearing masks in communal areas.
Staff are also being asked to continue to take regular lateral flow tests.
What the report didn’t say was that like so many councils and other public bodies, West Dunbartonshire was drowning in a sea of red tape.
Perhaps that’s what makes them so full of themselves?
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It’s not often we get a laugh covering politics, local and national, these days. You will all remember the recent story about Nicola Sturgeon defending the report from officials that said in order to allow the air to circulate through classrooms and corridors in our school we should cut the bottom off classroom doors. The reaction of one genius was that she laughed. “Someone should tell the First Minister that simply by opening the classroom door in the conventional way would have exactly the same effect as cutting the bottom off it. No wonder Nicola went into Nippy mode when this was pointed out to her in the Scottish Parliament chamber.”
The snp politburo in action.