Team Approach - October 2011
 Valerie Watts is determined to transform the image of Aberdeen City Council and have a positive impact on the lives of its citizens.
She arrived in the Granite City with an impressive track record having been key in helping her home city Londonderry rise, Phoenix like, from the ashes of the troubles.
During her two years there she led Derry in the successful bid to be the first ever UK City of Culture (in 2013) which resulted in the city hosting a number of major events in 2012 including the penultimate stage of the round the world clipper race and one of the cultural showpieces for the opening of the Olympics.
As the people of Derry enjoy the fruits of her efforts she plans to be making her mark on Aberdeen and has been surprised and encouraged by how demanding the private sector in the North-east is proving.
“They are not prepared to take ‘no’ for an answer and have great expectations on the council in terms of the statutory and regulatory responsibilities it exercises in raising the whole standard of living for citizens of Aberdeen,” she said.
“Having spoken to many of our business partners it is very pleasing to note that the private sector considers the council to be one of the main stakeholders in relation to the businesses they run.”
Because so many businesses in the private sector are in the oil and gas sector and have to compete in a global market to bring talent to the area she completely understands why so many demands are placed on the council about raising the bar on education, for example.
She stresses that the council is constantly achieving success and holds up front pages from The Press & Journal and Evening Express heralding the proposed new development at the Triple Kirks and the Dons’ new stadium as evidence.
“On a day and daily basis we carry out hundreds of thousands of single transactions as a council across a very wide range of services we deliver and quite frankly I don’t think we in local government have done enough in educating and communicating with the general public about the sheer scale of services we provide.”
She says if the public are asked what services they receive from the council they will refer to street sweeping, lighting and emptying the bins but will seldom mention education and social work which between them account for almost half of the budget.
However she believes there is still some slack in the council in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.
“I am not sitting here in my ivory tower pretending everything is brilliant. On a day and daily basis we look at how we can increase productivity, make best use of all the resources we have at our disposal and also how we can sweat council assets to raise more capital for some of the major and very ambitious projects we wish to deliver on for the citizens of Aberdeen.
“It is going to be challenging and quite frankly I don’t think we have even begun to feel the cold wind of change which is coming our way in relation to public sector funding. What I am very confident of is that we have a council prepared to step up to the plate and consider every single option as to how we can make savings in a way which does not have a direct impact on local business or on local citizens.”
She accepts that Union Street is “not how it should be” and has walked it late on Friday and Saturday nights and early on a Sunday morning to see for herself. Within the next few weeks she will join the city centre police and the street pastors one Saturday night to share their experiences. Similarly she will don a boiler suit to join the council’s street cleaners and ground maintenance teams.
“I want to see and feel for myself what some of the issues are, some of the problems as they go about their duties.”
She is encouraged by the fact there is a new City Centre Development Framework to help revitalise and regenerate the heart of the city with Union Street as its the spine but believes what this lacking is an overarching vision which goes beyond the economic vision of ACSEF.
“An all singing, all dancing vision, and a set of objectivea which public sector, private sector, communities be they affluent or deprived, are all signed up to. I am hoping to persuade the business sector to become involved in helping to determine that overarching vision.
“It has to be about culture, leisure, sport, business, education, health, infrastructure - the whole thing - and I think it is the City Council which holds the responsibility to lead out on that.
“There has been a huge missed opportunity. What has been put back into the city as a legacy as a result of everything which has been pulled out of the North Sea very close to the shores of Aberdeen?
“I have had conversations with colleagues in the city and they have said ‘Bring the project to us.’ That might be Union Terrace Gardens, it might be something completely different, but I tell you what - I will not let that opportunity pass me by.”
The SNP’s Callum McCaig who was recently appointed leader of the council’s SNP- Liberal Democrat coalition shares that view.
“The reason I am in politics is because I believe in Scottish independence and I want Aberdeen to be the absolute powerhouse of an independent Scotland,” he said.
“I think there is a lot of work we can do in Aberdeen to make that happen – but if it doesn’t happen in an independent Scotland we will still have Aberdeen as a powerhouse. The work we are doing here is to make sure that Aberdeen is and continues to be the most successful city in Scotland.
“I think we are getting to a stage now where there is a drive, not just from the city council but from the business community and the general public, to see something happen in Aberdeen and for it to become the type of place it should have been after 30 years of an oil boom.
“One of things which has crippled Aberdeen has been the lack of development land for probably 20 years but now we have delivered a local plan which will present this area with an unprecedented amount of land for housing and an unprecedented amount of land for business. No more can we hear the cries of there not being the right environment for development. It is over to the private sector – we have provided the land now you do something good with it.
“There is now a real opportunity to shape the city. I don’t believe the city centre is as bad as folk say. That might be my relative youth (he is 26). I don’t remember Union Street in its heyday. I don’t remember George Street before the shopping centres were built so the city centre is not that far off what it was when I was a kid. It could it be better – absolutely. Do we need it better? Absolutely.
“For the first 30 years of oil folk came to Aberdeen because they had to. Now a substantial proportion of the work being done from Aberdeen relates to West Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Kazakhstan. They don’t need to be in Aberdeen and they may not be in Aberdeen so we need to make sure Aberdeen is so good they want to stay here. Companies need to be able to attract the best people around the world to live and work in Aberdeen and let’s not be under any illusions about who we are competing with. It is not Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee. We are competing with Houston, Dubai, and Perth, Australia, and we need to be punching well above our weight to be able to remain as a global energy city.
“The aspirations are there from the business community and are certainly there from the council to make sure that happens.” |
