A Falkirk councillor says it’s time to look at whether three religious representatives who sit on the council’s education executive should have a right to vote.
Falkirk Council has a legal duty to appoint religious representatives to its education executive, thanks to legislation passed in 1973.
But Independent councillor Laura Murtagh believes that 50 years on, it’s time to look more closely at the fact those religious representatives still have a right to vote, as many other councils have changed this.
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The council’s education, children and young people’s executive recently merged with the executive, a powerful committee which is responsible for decisions affecting all council services.
The new, larger executive, has 15 members who are elected councillors.
When education matters are discussed – usually every second month – other representatives are also present, including parents, teachers, school pupils and a care experienced person.
There are also three religious representatives, who have a right to sit on the committee.
In Falkirk, the three religious representatives are from the Church of Scotland, Catholic Church and Evangelical Christian churches.
This reflects the census results for the district, where among those who said they had a religion, the largest percentage was ‘Church of Scotland’ (22.7 per cent), followed by ‘Roman Catholic’ (11.1 per cent) and ‘Other Christian’ (4 per cent).
For several years, the Church of Scotland representative has been Agnes Mullen while the Roman Catholic Church representative is Maureen Harkins.
At September’s meeting, the long-standing third representative, the Rev Michael Rollo was replaced by another ‘Other Christian’, David Seel.
Cllr Murtagh’s motion, which she hopes the council will debate on Thursday, acknowledges that The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 “requires Scottish local authorities to appoint religious representatives to their education committees”.
But while she welcomes their contribution to debates, Cllr Murtagh questions the fact that the religious representatives have the right to vote.
Many other councils across Scotland have already removed the voting rights of religious representatives and Cllr Murtagh wants to take a closer look at what might happen if Falkirk chooses to do the same.
If accepted, her motion “instructs officers to bring forward a report examining the issues around this topic, to include consideration of options to remove voting rights from religious representatives”.
Cllr Murtagh believes the additional members of the committee bring a wealth of experience and different views to debates – but their votes could be crucial to decisions being made by elected councillors.
She said: “Ultimately, the point of having elected members is that we are accountable to the public and we have to look at the big picture of the council in the round in all our decision-making.
“The religious reps’ votes could be the difference between something happening and not happening, which could affect all of our children, regardless of your religious views.
“My own view is that they shouldn’t have those rights but I think it’s important that people have their say and have a debate, so I really just want to give notice that we should have that discussion.”
Cllr Murtagh has submitted her motion for debate at Thursday’s meeting of Falkirk Council in Grangemouth Adult Education Centre, Abbot’s Road, Grangemouth, at 10 am. The meeting will also be livestreamed on Falkirk Council’s YouTube channel.
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