Apology after impaired West Fife councillors couldn't access reports

The local authority's education service also broke its promise to meet with two South and West area committee councillors with visual impairments before their meeting last week to go over information – potentially impacting their ability to do their job.  

A report on educational outcomes in the area went before committee members last Wednesday, but the paper was not accessible to all.

Commenting on the issue, Councillor Conner Young, Conservative representative for West Fife and coastal villages, said: "It’s well and good to apologise but if we can’t read any or all of the report, then we can’t scrutinise it or ask any questions which prevents us from doing our job." 

Stuart Booker, an education service officer for the council, explained that the service has been struggling for years to make their reports fully accessible for visually impaired councillors. 

“I want to start with an apology for the fact that this paper is not fully accessible. I do recognise that it’s not an acceptable position to be in,” Mr Booker said. 

“We have identified a solution and we are close to implementing a process to deal with that but I apologise that this particular paper hasn’t benefited.” 

Committee Convener David Barratt, SNP councillor for Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay, was aware of the accessibility issues at a pre-agenda meeting, but he was under the impression that the department would reach out to councillors with visual impairments to make sure there was an opportunity to look at the paper in more detail before the meeting. 

Councillor Graeme Downie (Labour for West Fife and coastal villages) added: “I can understand the difficulties with technology, but in the short term I’m really quite disappointed and a bit angry that pre-meeting did not take place as agreed because it means that two of our councillors are not able to engage in what is a really important discussion about education in our area.”

Cllr Young agreed that a pre-meeting would have been better because it would have given him time to formulate questions and scrutinise the report. 

“I appreciate the offer of having a meeting and I will take you up on that offer but could that not have been done before the report?” he asked. 

Mr Booker apologised again for the education service.  

“I was conscious that the arrangements I thought had been put in place had not actually been put in place," he added. "It’s a failure on our part and my apologies. It isn’t good enough, I do accept that.” 

Cllr Barratt and Cllr Downie both emphasised that inaccessible reports will no longer be presented to the committee in years to come. 

“We’ve been doing this long enough and raising [the issue of accessibility] for many years,” said Cllr Barratt.  “It’s at the point where we may need to be the gatekeepers and reject reports if they’re not accessible. Hopefully this time next year, this report is accessible. If it’s not, then it won’t be seen at this committee until it is.”