…the blog and website of Andy Wightman
I’ve been receiving information from Local Authorities in response to my latest Freedom of Information request for details of Common Good Funds. Without having carried out any detailed analysis, it is clear that many Councils still have not properly audited
Continue readingTomorrow marks 10 years of the Scottish Parliament. Opinion varies as to its effectiveness but at least it is modern, open, transparent and accountable. Compare this to the kind of rubbish that passes for Parliamentary process in Westminster. Check out
Continue readingFollowing yesterday’s post, the letter from the Minister, Roseanna Cunningham, to the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee has now been published. Disappointingly, it merely, offers to open up consultation on the design of the forms to be used and to
Continue readingAt the meeting of the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee [dead link – Nov 2023] yesterday (20 May 2009), members agreed the proposed community Right to Buy Regulations covering re-registration. It was reported that the Minister, Roseanna Cunningham, had written
Continue readingFollowing my post yesterday, it is great to see Heather Brooke on the cover of the Guardian’s G2 supplement today. Her story is a fascinating (but all too brief) account of the efforts she had to go to to secure
Continue readingAccording to this report, [dead link – Nov 2023] Scottish landowners are living in fear. On closer inspection, it appears that Oliver Russell, the husband of the owner of Ballindalloch Estate, made some remarks at a dinner party at which,
Continue readingMuch of what has been exposed on the topic of MPs’ expenses is trivial. What is not trivial is the extent to which MPs have time and time again claimed in their defence that everything that they did was within
Continue readingAmidst all the justifiable anger over the revelations of MPs’ expenses it is worth remembering that we owe our knowledge of these issues not to the Daily Telegraph, not to the person who leaked them and certainly not to the
Continue readingWell, I’ve just watched the proceedings of the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee and there was quite a bit of discussion about the proposed new Regulations (see yesterday’s post). Thanks to Peter Peacock and Liam McArthur in particular for probing
Continue readingThe Community Right to Buy provisions contained in Part 2 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, came into force on 14 June 2004. If a community wishes to register an interest in land they can apply to Scottish Ministers
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