Eve of Poll

Tomorrow sees the eve of poll and marks the last day of the life of this current council administration.

The last five years has been a roller-coaster. The local political agenda has been dominated by trams and by a lack of cash. 

I have spent the last five years as the Chair of the Health Social Care and Housing Committee and also of the Edinburgh Community Safety Partnership.

In that time we have seen  major improvements in a a number of key areas. 

In Social Care we have had massive demographic pressures and yet we have still managed to radically reform our care services and ensure that everyone who needs it gets the care they deserve when they need it.

I am particularly proud of introducing re-ablement.  Our manifesto is committed to ensuring we up our game even by ensuring minimum standards of services provided by us or by partners where we buy that care in. We are also committed to personalised services. Again as a liberal I believe we must treat people as individuals.

On Housing we have cut homelessness presentations by 16%, massively improved the quality of housing stock so that 75%  of our council homes now meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (it was only 17% when we took power) and we have built the first council housing in a generation.

On community Safety we have introduced the first Hate Crime Strategy in Scotland and reported crime is down by a massive 24% over the last 5 years. Critically our neighbourhood surveys also show that fear of crime is falling and people are feeling safer in their neighbourhoods. 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the thousands of Council and Police staff as well as  our care workers in the voluntary and private sectors for helping to make our vulnerable residents better cared for and for ensuring that we have fewer homeless people and that those who are homeless get better help and also for making our streets and our city safer for all of us.

It has been a great privilege and a great experience. I likened my job to having won the lottery without having to buy the ticket. I stand by that though I would say it was the Euro-millions!