THE first meeting of Glasgow City Council since the SNP’s election win took place and the party was immediately faced with the realities of a minority administration.

Susan Aitken was elected unopposed as council leader, the first SNP council leader in the city ever.

The SNP nomination for Lord Provost, Eva Bolander, was also approved. With the Greens backing Ms Bolander a Swedish national, defeated Labour’s Phil Braat and the Conservatives’ Ade Abinu.

Then the nature of running a minority hit home with two votes going against the SNP.

The vote for Deputy Lord Provost saw Mr Braat elected with votes from Labour, Conservatives and Greens enough to pip the SNP choice Norman McLeod.

Ms Bolander: This post carries great responsibility. I am thrilled by the honour of taking this post, the first EU national to do so.

“Glasgow is a friendly and warm city and has always welcomed people from around the world.

“I will do my best to do as our motto says ‘Let Glasgow Flourish’.”

Ms Bolander said her son was in the public gallery to witness her becoming Lord Provost and that it was also her daughter’s 20th birthday.

Then came the nitty gritty of electing members to the Executive Committee, the most powerful on the council where key decisions are taken.

The SNP proposed a 19 strong committee on which they would have had a majority of members with 10 to Labour’s seven and one each for the Tories and Greens.

However an amendment from the Greens proposed a larger committee of 23 members with an opposition majority. The SNP would have 11, Labour eight, and the Greens and Tories two apiece.

It was voted through by 44 votes to 39.

It means the SNP will need to gain support from at least one of the other parties to get decisions through on the Executive Committee.

Labour has claimed the SNP is attempting to scrap two scrutiny committees, which have in the past been chaired by the opposition.

There is no scrutiny committee proposed in the list of committees and Labour said there is no scrutiny committee chair included in the list of additional responsibility payments.

The chair previously earned £6,000 each.

Labour are angry, claiming the SNP tried to drop the two scrutiny committees while a the same time proposing to deal with complaints through the executive committee of which the party tried to gain majority control of.

Frank McAveety, former council leader, now leader of the Labour group said: “The SNP ran a campaign of promising scrutiny and accountability. Today they tried to railroad a majority through in a minority council and didn’t even bring forward plans for a scrutiny committee.

“If this is the beginning of a new dawn for Glasgow City Council I wonder what the next meeting will bring.”

The SNP has said it has agreed terms of reference for a scrutiny committee but not appointed a chair will look at convening scrutiny committees if one is needed between now and summer recess.

After recess there could be a review of committee structures with a new form of scrutiny build in.

However the opposition parties may not be content and could revisit the issue at the next full council.

The SNP announced their executive team who will be in charge of the main council functions

The council leader Ms Aitken is in charge of economic growth and also takes a place on the board of the SEC.

Her deputy David McDonald is in charge of Democratic renewal, and will oversee a change in how the council works with communities and devolve some decision making to an even more local level.

Allan Gow is the new City Treasurer responsible for a budget of around £2bn a year.

Chris Cunningham has responsibility for education, covering the city’s primary, secondary and nursery schools.

Kenny McLean will take over as convenor of neighbourhoods, housing and public realm.

Mhairi hunter will in charge of health and social care as the council works with the NHS to deliver integrated health and social care.