SNP councillor resigns from committee in wake of care homes meeting

A senior member of Fife Council’s administration has resigned from the social work committee in protest at the decision to privatise care home services, The Courier has learned.

It is understood SNP councillor David Torrance, who was the committee’s vice-chairman, left in disgust after previous assurances that new homes to be built in Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline would be run by the council were withdrawn.

His move came after he boycotted an important meeting to decide the homes’ fate, where his presence could have affected the outcome.

Mr Torrance, the SNP candidate for Kirkcaldy at the forthcoming Holyrood election, refused to comment on Wednesday, but his actions were criticised by those campaigning to keep the 10 care homes open.

The Kirkcaldy central councillor did not attend the social work committee on February 1, which voted by six to five to replace the local authority care homes with new buildings to be run by the private or voluntary sector.

The same committee had in October accepted a proposal by Mr Torrance that replacements for two of the homes — one in his ward in Kirkcaldy and one in Dunfermline — continue to be run by Fife Council. However, when the agenda for the February 1 committee was published, that was no longer an option.

Mr Torrance was also not present at Tuesday’s emergency full council meeting called by members of the opposition to debate the controversial issue again. That meeting ended without a single word after it was ruled a two-thirds majority would be required to suspend the authority’s standing orders before any discussion could take place.

The Conservative group has since said it will put forward a motion at next week’s full council meeting in another bid to have the issue debated.

Questions were later asked as to why Mr Torrance was not there on Tuesday, and why he stayed away from the February 1 meeting without handing in an apology.

Councillor Andrew Rodger, one of those who called for this week’s meeting and who has campaigned vigorously to keep the care homes open, claimed that had Mr Torrance turned up at the first meeting the decision could have been different.

He said, “He was against privatising the new homes and if he had come and voted against closing the homes we would have won the vote. This decision has been railroaded through without the support of the vice-chair and questions need to be asked as to why he didn’t appear on the day.”

Mr Rodger said he was still furious at the “fiasco” of Tuesday’s meeting and has written to the council’s law and administration service demanding answers.

“I specifically asked before the meeting what the procedures would be and nobody came back to say I’d got it wrong,” he said. “I had encouraged people to come along to the meeting and family members of residents came by bus from Cupar and Rosyth.”

The Levenmouth councillor stopped short of calling for the resignation of chief executive Ronnie Hinds and head of legal services Ian Grant however, saying his fight was a political one and was not with officers.

Campaigner Maureen Closs had called for the pair to go, claiming they had failed to give the opposition adequate legal advice. However, council leader Peter Grant said he had received no official complaint about the conduct of any officer and that it would be inappropriate to comment.

UKiP councillor Mike Scott-Hayward has hit out at the Tories for calling for another debate on the issue when they did not vote to suspend standing orders on Tuesday. He also apologised for not raising his own hand, admitting he had been caught napping.

But he added, “Anyone who is calling for a debate now should make it perfectly clear, publicly in advance, exactly what they propose instead.”