Coronavirus in Moray: Council officers take control
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Council officers will effectively be running Moray for at least the next three weeks.
A meeting has just been held this morning at the council chambers on Elgin High Street.
Party politics were set aside as a streamlined emergency cabinet of seven was selected from the 26 councillors who represent the different wards of Moray.
However, it will not meet for at least the next three weeks.
Instead an emergency management team of council officers, headed by the chief executive Roddy Burns, will be using delegated powers to make sure council services such as the collection of household rubbish continue.
The council's leader Graham Leadbitter praised the work of council staff under trying circumstances, as well as the NHS and the emergency services.
He recognised the need for officers to be given room to act quickly and decisively, but added: "I feel it's extremely important that in the interests of democracy and scrutiny we never become comfortable with the situation we are in – because it's not normal."
Mr Burns predicted that the situation would ease in time, but stated he did not see how it was feasible for the emergency cabinet to meet every week at the moment.
Instead, he stated that the emergency management team would log every decision they were making, so they could be reviewed later.
An enquiry was made about why more information was not being passed on to councillors.
Mr Burns replied that he had heard Boris Johnson's and Nicola Sturgeon's announcement about the lockdown at the same time as everybody else on Monday evening.
Mr Burns also praised the work of council staff under extreme pressure.
He said: "We have people in tears. We have people who are very worried. We also have people who are stepping up to the plate."
The cabinet of seven councillors are Graham Leadbitter (Elgin South, SNP); Shona Morrison (Fochabers and Lhanbryde, SNP); Tim Eagle (Buckie, Conservative); Donald Gatt (Keith and Cullen, Conservative); George Alexander (Forres, Independent); John Divers (Elgin South, Labour) and Derek Ross (Speyside and Glenlivet, Independent).
