Falkirk Council to look at education voting rights of religious representatives

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Falkirk Council is to look at the voting rights of religious representatives who sit on its education executive.

Councillors unanimously accepted Independent councillor Laura Murtagh's motion asking officers to "bring forward a report examining the issues around this topic, to include consideration of options to remove voting rights from religious representatives".

Her motion highlighted the fact that Falkirk Council has a legal duty to appoint religious representatives to its education executive, thanks to legislation passed in 1973.

Read more: Cuts to Falkirk school hours will not go ahead as councillors reject plans

But Cllr Murtagh believes that 50 years on, it's time to look more closely at the fact those religious representatives still have a right to vote, as many other councils have changed this.

The council's education, children and young people's executive recently merged with the executive, a powerful committee which is responsible decisions affecting all council services.

The new, larger executive has 15 members who are elected councillors.

When education matters are discussed - usually every second month - other representatives are also present, including parents, teachers, school pupils and a care experienced person.

There are also three religious representatives, who have a right to sit on the committee.

In Falkirk, the three religious representatives are from the Church of Scotland, Catholic Church and Evangelical Christian churches.

This reflects the census results for the district, where among those who said they had a religion, the largest percentage was ‘Church of Scotland’ (22.7 per cent), followed by ‘Roman Catholic’ (11.1 per cent) and ‘Other Christian’ (4 per cent).

For several years, the Church of Scotland representative has been Agnes Mullen while the Roman Catholic Church representative is Maureen Harkins.

At September's meeting, the long-standing third representative, the Rev Michael Rollo was replaced by another 'Other Christian', David Seel.

The agreed motion also "accepts that there have been many changes to the democratic structures of local authorities, the national relationship between church and state and the demographic make-up of Falkirk's citizens in the 50 years since the legislation was introduced"

Cllr Murtagh believes the additional members of the committee bring a wealth of experience and different views to debates - but their votes could be crucial to decisions being made by elected councillors.

Speaking before the meeting, she said: "Ultimately, the point of having elected members is that we are accountable to the public and we have to look at the big picture of the council in the round in all our decision-making.

"The religious reps' votes could be the difference between something happening and not happening, which could affect all of our children, regardless of your religious views.

"My own view is that they shouldn't have those rights but I think it's important that people have their say and have a debate, so I really just want to give notice that we should have that discussion."

She assured members that at this stage all that is being asked for is a report on the issue and this was agreed unanimously.

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