Glasgow Labour split over 'missed opportunity' to appoint a woman as City Treasurer

Concerns were raised at a recent meeting of Labour councillors that the leadership was failing to honour a commitment to gender equality.

The Labour group recently passed a motion in support of the Women 5050 campaign which calls for legislative quotas for women on public boards, in the Scottish Parliament and in local councils.

The drive for equality was launched in September 2014 by Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale and has since been backed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon as well as dozens of MSPs and councillors.

Glasgow City Council leader Frank McAveety has increased the number of female Labour councillors on the executive committee from one to three, with the Labour group also contributing seven men.

But it has been claimed that recommending Philip Bratt to replace Paul Rooney as City Treasurer was a “missed opportunity” to increase women’s representation at the top of the local authority.

It is understood several councillors criticised the leadership when the Labour group was told at a private meeting last Monday that Mr McAveety would put forward Mr Bratt.

One Labour councillor, who asked not to be named, said: “It flared up because of the appointment of Philip Braat. Some of the group members argued it should be a woman because of the motion. During the discussion Frank (McAveety) asked Archie (Graham, Labour’s equalities spokesman and deputy leader of the group) to try defend the line on woman not needing to be appointed.”

Councillor Judith Fisher, who spoke out at the meeting, said: “It's a matter of public record that the Labour group unanimously agreed to support the Women 5050 campaign and the realisation of gender balance of Labour appointments at all levels of the council. The progress of moving from one woman executive member to three should be appreciated. However, I will continue to press for full gender balance to become a reality. A council that reflects the city it represents leads to better decision making.”

Chair of the Women 5050 Talat Yaqoob, also appeared to criticise the council leadership over Mr Bratt’s appointment.

She said: “Given the Glasgow Labour group just recently passed a motion to fully support the Women 5050 campaign, this seems like a missed opportunity to put that support into action.

“What we need is real commitment and visible action from all parties, whether in national or local government, to get more women into decision making positions so we have a Scotland that is truly representative.”

Councillor Archie Graham insisted the council leadership remains committed to working towards gender equality.

He said: “It was quite interesting actually that some of the women that came in on the debate said we’ve actually made good progress here and let’s take it a bit at a time. But others were saying it was a missed opportunity. There was mixed views in the group among the women members and indeed the men.

“Frank answered that and said the resolution we passed at the group was to work towards 5050 and we will get there eventually.

“I was then asked if I wanted to say anything because I’m the spokesperson on equalities and I said something similar to Frank in the sense that we had made good progress already and we would work towards it in the fullness of time.”

Mr Graham also suggested the leadership’s hands are tied because only a quarter of Labour councillors in Glasgow are women.

“Really, the crux of the problem is we don’t have anywhere near half of the members of the council who are female and that makes it a real challenge,” he said. “It also actually places a burden to some extent on women if you start overloading them with work in comparison to men. So we’ve got to watch not to do that either.

“Just supposing we went through the Labour group membership tomorrow morning and said we’re going to put 50% of women on every single committee on the council then what we would be doing is we’d be absolutely be overloading people with work in comparison to men. You would then have a situation where men might be serving on three or four committees and women might be serving on seven or eight to make it up to 50%.”

He added: “It would have been possible in theory to put one of the women on the executive committee into the role of treasurer and replace their current position with somebody else but once you put somebody into that post you’ve got to backfill afterwards and you end up having to move three or four people around.”

A spokesman for the leader’s office at the council said: “When Councillor Paul Rooney resigned as City Treasurer this month that created two vacancies among councillors’ promoted posts. The Treasurer post was filled by Councillor Philip Braat. The second post by Councillor Maureen Burke. In gender equality terms that is 5050.

“This is in line with the aspirations of gender equality agreed by a previous Labour Group meeting. This is also in addition to a substantial shift in the promotion of Labour women councillors to senior positions in the Council, which has already taken place.”

The Evening Times also contacted Councillor Philip Bratt for comment but he did not respond.