Friday

Sir Harry Burns

Last night was the Edinburgh South West Labour Party AGM. Good attendance and good to see many of the main officerial roles and responsibilities taken on by women. I was replaced as Political Education Officer which is obviously a bit of a set back to my career but I'll just have to get over it ....

This morning, as requested, we got a briefing on the Property Services investigation, which is to be reported to the Council meeting next Thursday. As has now been covered in the media, what the report doesn't say is probably more significant than what it does say. Essentially, investigations are ongoing, including the police inquiry so there's an understandable reluctance to reveal too much information until several strands of work are complete. Not terribly satisfactory but at the least the report does provide some options for re-establishing a property services / statutory repair function.

Then it was off to the CoSLA Convention meeting at their new offices (hadn't realised they'd moved) at Haymarket. It was started by a brief presentation from Scotland's Chief Medical Officer Sir Harry Burns. He was characteristically direct in his assertion that the country's collective efforts at tackling health inequalities, or inadequacies as he referred to them, are failing miserably. Compared to other European countries and indeed some English regions we are simply not seeing positive results from the various public health campaigns. In particular he targeted adverse events in a child's first three years as having a significant effect on their future health, well being and ultimately life expectancy. Sobering stuff indeed and while many delegates agreed with his analysis there wasn't much in the way of incisive ideas to shake us out of the current malaise.