Concern over the safety of councillors in West Dunbartonshire after the "horrendous experience” of one elected member has seen them back a move to hold more surgeries online.
Labour councillor Clare Steele who said her experiences at in person surgeries had left her feeling “more vulnerable and scared” than ever before.
She said that while face to face meetings should continue, online surgeries would also allow residents unable to attend in person to still speak to their local representative.
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A motion brought forward to the most recent full council meeting by Cllr Steele read: “The traditional method of surgeries has been to book a meeting room in a school, community centre, library or other suitable building.
“This council agrees that this tried and tested method should continue. However, the world has changed significantly since the creation of West Dunbartonshire Council, the way that the public interact with one another has changed and the advances in technology particularly over the past few years has made on-line communications much faster and can be more effective.
“Online meetings have a number of advantages, they save in travel time, they cut emissions, they don’t require buildings to be opened or staffed, and they can be quicker to organise and reduce potential risks to elected members.”
Speaking about her motion, councillor Steele said: “It is imperative that elected members are accessible to constituents and the traditional methods of booking rooms and holding them face to face in person should continue.
“However, if the Covid pandemic has shown us anything, it has shown us how to live alongside technology. Not only this, but for elected members or constituents who have disabilities or other challenging health needs, it might make it difficult to have the traditional methods of contact and interaction.
“Online surgeries can also reduce potential risks to elected members and personally speaking I have had a horrendous experience at a surgery, and while I won’t go into detail just now due to an ongoing court case with a trial that’s approaching, I can tell you it has left me more vulnerable and scared than ever before.
“We all have a job to do and a job that we all signed up for but we are human and we deserve to be able to go to our work. We should have every right to do our job and to be safe at the same time.”
Councillor Jonathon McColl agreed that no-one should feel unsafe at work and that he too had experienced “similar” behaviour from the same person.
He said: “No-one should have to experience what councillor Steele experienced and without going into too much detail, I too have experienced similar behaviour from the same individual.
“It was only a matter of time before it blew up. I welcome the motion but I would say to colleagues, if anyone is feeling like they want to do online surgeries, the facility does already exist.
“Members services can set up a meeting for you using Microsoft Teams. I myself have held a number of online surgeries during the last few years particularly during covid - I have used teams, zoom and skype but it would be helpful if we get a report back which could develop a process on how an elected member could ask for support to do an online surgery and get it advertised.”
It was suggested that online surgeries could be advertised on the council website, Facebook and Twitter pages at no additional cost.
A report on the issue will be brought to a future meeting for consideration after the motion received unanimous backing.
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