Wednesday 16 March 2011

Community fears raised at public meeting


Communities should have more say in how their public services are run in the North East.

This was the opinion expressed at a public meeting held by the Christie Commission at Woodburn House in Aberdeen last night.

Charity worker Rhona Kemp said: “Councils and Police need to cut the apron strings and the purse strings. I ran a disability awareness programme in schools with the help of the police. The police had to stop helping because they were too busy doing budgets. We need to let the police do more.”

The Christie Commission has been set up by the Scottish government to hear ideas on how public services should be run.

The meeting was co hosted by Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council and focused mainly on the role of voluntary organisations and the public sector.

Westhill care worker Maureen Strachan said: “We need to adopt a wartime attitude and do more for ourselves.”

Ideas suggested included giving volunteer health organisations more say in how care is given, a removal of beaurocracy from the public sector and attempting to get more people engaged in local politics.

Despite the commission’s hope to hear opinions from the public, only 12 people were at the meeting. The majority of attendees were from the voluntary sector.

The meeting was chaired by former local NHS Director Dr Roger Gibbons who feels there were a lot of interesting points raised about how communities could be more involved in running local services.

“If they were more enabled they could use resources better.

“Our expectation is to make a road map to the future. It will be up to a new government to take them on board.”

(Photo courtesy of STV)

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