Councillor Graeme Campbell
Home About Graeme 1^st Year Report Projects SLC Surgeries Contact Graeme
Projects Murray Drive Stonehouse Library Council Paper Waste > Council Staff Sickness	One thing I didn’t expect when I became a councillor in May 2007 was the amount of paper I receive each week: Planning application list for the entire county (min 20 A4 pages). Copies of letters from the council to all councillors in this ward. Resource committee reports for each committee I’m a member (Finance & IT, Corporate Resources, Estates, Social Work and the East Kilbride Area Committee). Agendas for ever other council committee. Education reports. Marketing material from SLC, CIPFA, COSLA and many, many local groups. Copies of my own letters sent to constituents electronically. The council also spent thousands and thousands of pounds equipment every councillor with: 1) A brand new IBM laptop. 2) A brand new printer. 3) A home broadband connection (I refused this). 4) A printer is each councillor office within SLC HQ. With all this great technology, why do the councillors need to received tons of paper each year, never mind the human cost in copying and distributing paper documents across the council? Sadly many councillors, including a few from my own group, are simply incapable of reading documents on their PC’s and print everything they receive in e-mail, adding to the already outrageous waste in paper across the council. The council has also spent thousands training each council who wants training on IT but still so many of your councillors revert to the 20^th century and continue to waste even more paper and therefore even more of your hard earned council tax. My project, which I have to admit doesn’t have much support at the moment is simply to try and set goals to reduce the paper being wasted on the councillors, when there is simply no excuse: My first success is the council has agreed to stop sending out the planning notices in paper format and soon these will be e-mailed only. The councils IT department continue to lock down their networks so much that we cannot gain wireless access from committee rooms so we’ve currently got no option but to take papers to each committee meeting. Not even the police are this pedantic anymore when it comes to encrypted wireless communication so why is SLC in the dark ages? Even some very senior council officers are stuck in the dark ages and refuse to accept that it is the 21^st century and things must change! My project continuous to try and reduce this ridiculous paper wastage across the council.