Torn between two duties

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Save Leith Water World from closure

Turns out there are 40 days to save Leith Water World from closure.

It turns out that way back in 2005 it was decided to close the local pool and if City of Edinburgh Council cant be persuaded to change its mind soon the pool will close on 8th January 2012.

The local community have recently responded to this by launching an active campaign, which amongst other things will involve accessing records held by the Council using opportunities provided by the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act. 

Its worth noting that whilst the City of Edinburgh Council is subject to the Act, Edinburgh Leisure who manage the Councils sports facilities isn’t.

I would like to have stepped in to help the campaigners, I’m sure my experience & knowledge will have been of use and I’m sure someone else helping with the campaign would have been welcomed.

I am a member of the community after all, I have an interest in community facilities being available to the community to use.  Though I must confess I haven’t used Leith Water World in something like 15 years!

It really is a valuable resource for the people of Leith & the wider area.  It’s not just a boring pool where people swim lengths but a place to have fun!  As a nation we need to be encouraging people to take part in activities which are good for peoples health and I think using Leith Water World would count.

The trouble is, I also work for the City of Edinburgh Council. As an employee I have certain rules I must adhere to as per the Employee Code of Conduct amongst other things.

Could I really take part in a campaign that actively goes against a decision taken by Council?

It seems disloyal to my employer, who after all has been a good employer to me during my time there.

Sometimes its really hard to balance my duties as an employee of the Council with my duty to the community in which I live, this situation is just one example.

Thankfully, on this occasion there seems to be enough people leading the cause and even more thankfully many more people actively getting involved by signing petitions, contacting their Councillors etc;

I have signed the online petition & I will do my bit by cheering from the sidelines and will re-tweet & ‘like’ where I can.

Best of luck to the campaigners, I’m rooting for ya!

 

Click here to visit the campaign website

Click here to visit the campaign Facebook page

Click here to visit the campaign Twitter profile

9th Holyrood magazine FOI conference

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This year I had hoped to attend Holyrood magazines annual freedom of information
conference.  It’s a staple of the FOI calendar with Kevin Dunion giving one of the keynote speeches as his tenure of Scottish  Information Commissioner approaches an end.

Prices aren’t  cheap with places costing from £218 up to £338 but I thought it would be worth the cash as it’s an excellent event with great networking potential.

Sadly, when I phoned to try and book a place I was turned down because I would have been attending as an individual rather than a delegate from a commercial body or
public authority.

A slightly odd stance to take given that Holyrood magazine is a commercial operation so it
effectively turned down a sale by not selling me a place.

I got over this disappointment pretty quickly after much moaning and complaining to
anybody that would listen.

However, much to my surprise a few days later I was invited by Holyrood magazine to take
part in the conference!

How unbelievable that firstly I’m not welcome to attend because I’m not a ‘profesional’ and then out of the blue I get an email asking me to take part.

Ofcourse, I really wanted to go to the conference and I really wanted to take part but after being snubbed from attending I’m just far to stubborn to take part.

On a final note, I should say in the interests of fairness that Holyrood magazine has said the matter was being reported to a senior manager after I raised it with one of their staff.

Holyrood foi invite

Invite 2

Blogging continues

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I am pleased to announce that blogging will re-commence on this blog at somepoint this week.

I offer my apologies to those of you who were regular readers and assure you that the period of non blogging was as undesired by me as it was you.