Angus officials have come up with a plan to smooth the divisions that have brought the council under a negative national spotlight.
In response to continuing criticism from both the Standards Commission and Audit Scotland, battling elected members are being asked to embrace mediation and settle their differences before launching into official complaints against each other.
The proposal of an informal mediation board will be made at this week’s full meeting of Angus Council in Forfar in an effort to take Angus away from the now familiar route of reports to the body which rules on the conduct of Scotland’s councillors.
Complaint investigations were a rarity in Angus until 2007, but the arrival of the Angus Alliance after decades of SNP hegemony ushered in an era of bitterness between councillors, leading to a six-fold surge in commission complaints.
The animosity caught the attention of the external regulatory bodies, with Audit Scotland suggesting that the running of the council was being compromised by councillors’ failure to get on with each other.
In the latest determination, which saw Arbroath rivals David Fairweather and Alex King have complaints against each other dismissed, the standards commissioner made comments that have led to the new proposal to get elected members working more effectively together.
“The Standards Commission expressed concern regarding the number of complaints referred to them by Angus councillors in recent years,” says a joint report by council chief executive David Sawers and corporate services director Colin McMahon to Thursday’s meeting.
“The Standards Commission explained that in their opinion many of the complaints referred to them resulted from inter-party conflict.”
In a letter sent to the council in August, the commission urged Angus to look at the “poor political relationships” as “a matter of some urgency.”