Thread by @AlysGreens

Today was a mammoth Policy & Sustainability Committee packed with lots of Green wins & interesting discussion.

You can watch it back on the webcast edinburgh.public-i.tv/core/portal/we… or here's a wee thread about what went down 🧵👇 x.com/AlysGreens/sta…

P&S deals with overarching objectives of the council, scrutiny of services, big things like climate change & equality, & economic strategy. Group leaders (Co-Conveners for us) usually sit on it and it's chaired by Council Leader, so it's a bit like Full Council without the bling.

🚽First up was the business bulletin, where we had lots to say about TOILETS. @KateC_SNP had been asking questions about access to loos, particularly in @Ed_Leisure facilities. Safe to say we all weren't too impressed with the answers so lots more work to do on this!

🚨Next up was the Police where I asked about how Police Scotland are tackling misogyny in the force, given the latest horrific case about sexual violence from the Met. I was keen to understand more about what *actually* happens if someone reports a serving officer for a crime.

The answer wasn't super comforting, implying that the latest case was a one-off, rather than a sign of deep-rooted sexism and complicity, so I'll be following this up.

A consultation on the Local Police Plan for Edinburgh is live, so have your say here: consult.scotland.police.uk/strategy-insig…

🐖Next we had an emergency motion on #GorgieCityFarm which I was pleased to second on behalf of the ward councillors inc @CllrDanHeap We called for the council to step up and do more, and delegated authority to the Chief Exec to offer council staff support to the farm.

🌽Back to the agenda, and another win for us as we secured an endorsement of the @Plant_Treaty and made clear the links between climate and food. The Tories and Lib Dems tried to stop this passing but pleased that SNP and Labour backed us and it passed!

https://x.com/Edinburgh_CC/status/1615344711518064640

✊ Next up, despite an on-brand amendment from the Tories seeking to limit time off for Trade Union Reps, we passed a report approving a new policy on this.

📃We also passed a Green addendum on Code of Conduct, asking for more work to prevent sexist, racist & other harassments

🛠️ We all (mostly) agreed that we need to see how we can bring maintenance services in house, upskilling council workers and improving services, &

⚡️the amendment on the Council's Energy Management Policy by @CllrBenParker to bring it in line with our climate targets passed ✅

Next we had a few stooshies, but thankfully the votes went the right way.

When there is disagreement, we can try to work together with other parties to try and find common ground and a consensus decision. It involves a lot of texts, emails and back and forth!

🛻 First we had a policy about tracking devices on council vehicles. This is mostly for really useful purposes but we had heard that union colleagues had some concerns. All parties were keen to find solutions, & we worked with labour to agree to pause and revisit the policy soon.

*BONUS* this discussion also included a councillor who shall not be named (but I bet you can guess the party) essentially saying "if you're not doing anything wrong, why would you have anything to worry about?". Le sigh.

🔥 Second was about Energy for Edinburgh, a council owned energy company but which hasn't done much yet. Officers suggested we should use the budget allocated to it on small grants - we💚community action on climate change, but didn't think this is what that budget should be for.

SNP had also put in an amendment, but which suggested that we sell shares in the company to a business partner. We worked with them on a merged amendment calling for an options appraisal - including their idea, but also (better) things like community ownership, which passed!

📒Next we talked about the regional prosperity framework covering Edinburgh and other councils in SE Scotland. This mentioned #freeports a *lot* so both us & SNP had amendments on this.

Ours also spoke about the lack of diversity on the committee (one woman, 8 men, all white😱)

We withdrew half of our amendment and backed the SNP's as it was stronger. Weirdly (but pleasingly), the Lib Dems said they actually really liked our whole amendment, and so then *they* proposed it - meaning whatever passed, our amendment had won!

In the end, it was a close vote and the SNP amendment which called for the Free Port to be removed from the framework (as it is covered in different strategies, and involves different local councils) fell, so we supported them in referring it to Full Council for more scrutiny.

🗳️Finally, a report on how we can remove barriers to elected office for underrepresented groups. This was a response to a motion from @melaniemain in the last Council and called for a survey of councillors and workshops to identify solutions. Uncontroversial, you might think?

Not so! In a final villainous move, the Tories proposed noting the report, but not taking any action on it whatsoever. (they have 2 female councillors currently...).
Luckily our amendment calling for better data, structural change, and gender balance passed instead, phew!

A couple of routine decisions, and then we were done.

So a long day, but all @EdinburghGreens amendments passed, some really important points were made, and there were even some pleasing outbreaks of consensus and democracy at times.

💚

(I do also fully appreciate that this wasn't the most pressing political news of the day, but may be less depressing?)