Inverness councillors among those calling for ‘break-up of Highland Council’ following Kate Forbes’ suggestion to dismantle the local authority

Dissatisfaction with Highland Council’s performance as a statutory organisation has left three opposition leaders feeling they have no option but to make the first move in what could result in the dismantling of the local authority.

A motion - submitted to next week’s full council meeting - is calling on the local authority to “take up offers made” by members of the Scottish Government to conduct a review into what form of local government would best serve the Highlands.

The move was the brainchild of Councillor Andrew Jarvie, the former Tory group leader and now a member of the Highland Alliance, who has been a long-time critic of the council but he was far from alone in taking action.

Councillors Alasdair Christie (Lib Dems), Duncan Macpherson (Highland Alliance) and Ruraidh Stewart (Conservatives) backed by six others including Nairn Provost Laurie Fraser want to see the Highlands better represented and therefore better served by splitting the local authority into smaller local councils more akin to district councils due to what they say are “structural” problems.

It follows a series of high-profile examples that lead some people to ask if the council is fit for purpose.

These include education as it illustrates the issue for many as the council failed to safeguard a 15-year-old girl from a teacher’s alleged "inappropriate behaviour” while attainment is declining and falls behind the national average.

The school estate is a significant problem as the council has failed to replace a decaying special school - St Clement’s in Dingwall - in over 20 years as well as mainstream schools like Charleston and Culloden academies in Inverness or Park Primary in Invergordon which was destroyed by fire.

Meanwhile, hundreds of staff have said they felt bullied at work in a report that was not released for 18 months. That includes many in education while there have been claims that the council resorted to hostility to recover cash that was overpaid to staff who had already left the organisation - although a council official has denied this.

Last year, a lack of social workers saw even the council’s own officials warn of a “critical to catastrophic” risk the body would be unable to protect children due to a 41 per cent vacancy rate.

At the same time it was claimed officials in the past attacked elected members for speaking out and then when they tried to force through major changes to Academy Street the plans were halted after Scotland’s highest court ruled the council acted “unlawfully”.

This year’s general election - run by council staff - saw Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire become the last constituency in the UK to declare after multiple recounts.

While the state of roads due to potholes has been reduced to a running joke among locals - yet road maintenance is a key council service.

And some parts of the region prompted criticism from local and tourists for appearing unkempt - a situation the council claims may be addressed by raising rent for council tenants by either eight, nine or 10 per cent with it saying all three options enable the local authority to spend an additional £219,000 on grounds maintenance that will allow weed control and strimming to return to the levels of previous summers.

The motion states: “No amount of good intentions and efforts from this chamber and council can realistically deliver the best for such a diverse population.

“The issues we face are structural in nature and were forced upon this area nearly 30 years ago in nothing more than an experiment, with no regard for the needs of the people and communities across the Highlands.

“Under current arrangements, we can only do the best within a very flawed system.”

They will press council leader Raymond Bremner to formalise the request to the Scottish Government and for council to make “initial steps to capture member views” with a “working group for the delivery of local democracy”.

It said the council should welcome “the repeated acknowledgement” from “senior elected members of the Scottish Government” that the council area is “geographically too large”.

That likely refers to Deputy First Minister - and Highland SNP MSP - Kate Forbes’ “let’s start by breaking up Highland Council” response when she was running for the SNP leadership when asked what she would do for the north.

That was a position that was ultimately emulated by the two other candidates in the race - Ash Regan and former First Minister Humza Yousaf - but no further action was taken.

But the calls for change did not stop. In July, an analysis by the Sunday Times revealed Highland Council has the worst public services in Scotland as the region ranked at the bottom for health and education out of 29 mainland areas.

Then in September, the Building a Local Scotland (BLS) campaign singled out Highland Council as a prime example of “creeping centralisation” that made the country “one of the least locally governed countries in the world”.

Scotland also has the smallest number of councillors in Europe. England has an average of 2814 people per councillor, Norway 572 and Denmark 2216 but the average Scottish councillor looks after 4155 constituents.

And just last week, the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) found that “too many people in the Highlands and Islands are hungry, homeless without access to healthcare, and the basics for everyday life”.

Professor Angela O’Hagan said of the report - Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Highlands and Islands - that: “The commission is very concerned about the poor state of economic, social and cultural rights in the Highlands and Islands.”