Where were they ?

Went along to the Unison hosted public meeting last night at Appleton Tower to discuss the Council's ABM process ahead of Thursday's Council decision on whether or not to privatise Environmental Services (refuse collection etc). It was firmly but fairly chaired by Evening News columnist Martin Hannan whose good humour helped to keep the contributions on track. It was well attended (200 ?) and there were a lot of good points made and arguments thrashed out. It could have been a much more informative event though if the Council Administration had turned up. My understanding is that the SNP and LibDems had agreed to attend, along with a senior Council official but all cancelled at short notice for various reasons. Very disappointing, and the audience, most of whom were Council workers I think, will draw their own conclusions. The panel of Peter Hunter from Unison, Andrew Burns (Labour) and Jeremy Balfour (Conservative) more than filled the void left by others and had a good debate with each other and the audience about the merits or otherwise of the process and the decisions that lie ahead. It would be fair to say that I don't think Jeremy won over many people to his pro-ABM stance but at least he was there to make his points and listen to others.