Councillors demand special meeting of the Comhairle over care home charging policy

Barra, Vatersay, Eriskay and South Uist councillor Calum MacMillan, who organised the move under the Comahirle’s standing orders, said that the meeting was necessary to establish, “if security of croft tenure as set out in the Crofting Legislation has primacy over the pressing need to recover costs for residential care, or if the current Comhairle practice of forcing the sale of tenancies and properties in landlord ownership has primacy over Statutory Legislation of the Crofting Acts of Parliament.” 

“There are crofts in every Comhairle Ward”, Cllr MacMillan stated, “and the core issue that councillors must consider is whether they are in support of Crofting, complete with the statutory provisions, or if they see croft houses and tenancies as an opportunity to realise cash to cover care costs.”

Cllr MacMillan also questioned in a later statement whether the same principle, as he defined it, of forcing the sale of a croft tenancy would be applied to other forms of private tenancy. 

The councillor stated: “If a resident in a care home has a private tenancy with a landlord for their home, do we demand that that private house is sold to pay for care charges? Or do we demand that where people with tenancies through Hebrides Housing Partnership that that house has to be sold? No. Then why do we do this with crofts?

“This is the matter of a tenancy, the croft does not belong to the tenant, it belongs to the landlord.” 

The demand for the meeting which, the organisers claim is a first in the authority’s history, uses Comhairle’s standing orders to demand a meeting when a quarter of councillors back that call, and it is understood that standing orders dictate that the special meeting must take place within two weeks of the call being made.

The demand for the meeting was backed by councillors Calum Mac Millan, John Norman MacLeod, Donald Manford, John G Mitchell, Rae Mac Kenzie, Gordon Murray, John A Mac Iver and Kenneth Mac Leod.

The notice under standing orders also asks for details from the Comhairle  of ‘the number of permanent improvements that have been affected by this Comhairle per year since commencement of the current policy, and the amount of money gathered by the Comhairle per year since the commencement of this current policy’.

In addition the notice asks for ‘the number of cases currently operational concerning the Comhairle recovering monies from assignation of tenancies, selling off permanent improvements belonging to third parties’, specifically where the Comhairle ‘seeks to be appointed executor of legacies in cases of intestate estate of deceased crofters with a view to being beneficiary, and, the number of cases where the Comhairle is the Care Guardian and Financial Guardian’.

 But, with a full round of Comhairle committee meetings and a meeting of the full Comhairle already set to take place within the next two weeks it remains unclear, at the time of going to press, when the meeting could be arranged.

For Cllr MacMillan, the meeting of the full Comhairle scheduled March 4th is a budget meeting and cannot therefore be considered to fulfill the terms of the meeting demanded under standing orders.  

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar was asked for a response to the demand for the meeting and the points raised in the notice. 

A spokesperson for the authority said: “At this stage we would simply confirm that a request has been received and is being considered.”