‘Furious’ councillor urges Aberdeen to quit Cosla

A LEADING member of Aberdeen City Council’s joint administration will today urge the authority to consider resigning from Cosla – the umbrella organisation of which he is vicepresident.

Liberal Democrat councillor Neil Fletcher has been vice- president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities for the past four years.

But he has tabled an emergency motion, to go before today’s meeting of the full council, calling for officials to carry out a cost-benefit appraisal of membership of Cosla “so that council can decide whether Aberdeen City should give notice of withdrawal from Cosla when its current subscription expires”.

Mr Fletcher said yesterday that he had decided to table the motion in protest at a decision taken by Cosla last week to protect four councils from a reduction in their “Supporting People” funds by taking funding for the social care initiative from the 28 other councils in Scotland.

He said he was left “completely infuriated” by Cosla’s decision.

He declared: “They have always argued it wouldn’t be fair to take money from one council to help another, and that’s why they couldn’t help Aberdeen. But that’s exactly what they did last Friday.”