The legality of councillor politicking

Well it seems that councils don't have the legal powers to impose minimum pricing for alcohol at the local level, as I predicted in a letter to the Courier. Dundee's licensing board chairman Rod Wallace has "been forced to admit defeat" over his suggestion, because the licensing legislation doesn't afford local authorities the powers to bring in the necessary by-laws.

Interesting, however, is Councillor Wallace's claim in the Evening Telegraph that it might have been possible to amend the legislation to allow the by-law, but he didn't think "the Scottish Parliament would see that as a priority just now given the budget cuts it will have to deal with and the election that's coming up in May".

However - and leaving aside his suggestion that the Parliament will spend a considerable amount of its time between now and May just electioneering - as I said in my letter, if MSPs are ill-disposed towards legislating for minimum pricing nationally then why would they do so on a local basis? And if Mr Wallace is merely talking about a general power to make by-laws, why would MSPs afford this if they knew the intention was to use the powers to impose minimum pricing? And even if a general power to make by-laws existed at present, if councils tried to use such powers for minimum pricing then presumably they would run into the problem of a lack of specific authority to set such controls, which was what scuppered the actions of several local authorities a few years ago.

Anyway, another matter involving councillors and legal powers pertains to the Tayside Fire and Rescue proposal to redeploy resources, which has resulted in some political controversy and caused a split in the local SNP group. A correspondent to the Evening Telegraph says that the "Fire Board is non-political committee where councillors on the board are required by law to take a personal, non-party line". Which was my understanding until relatively recently, but given the self-evident politicking over the issue I thought I'd misunderstood the legal position. But if the letter-writer is correct then this raises some interesting questions. The correspondent alludes that the Labour group may have proceeded along party lines because they all voted the same way, thus acting illegally.

However, despite the split SNP vote, the political motive is more overt with the Nationalists. For example, board convener Ken Lyall said: "We have to appear as one party. The last thing I want is to be part of a party which is just as bad as the Liberals -- one policy for every different street. That is the danger here."

Which hardly seems consistent with a "personal, non-party line", whether or not councillors actually toe it.

So what happens next? Impeachment?

'Nothing' is probably the more realistic answer.

Presumably no-one really takes this non-political theory seriously anyway. For example, the planing and licensing convenerships on Dundee City Council were previously carved-up with a view to forming a cross-party alliance to run the city, thus hardly a good basis for acting non-politically.