Kathleen Leslie quits as Education scrutiny convener after Labour move

Councillor Kathleen Leslie – who announced she had left the Conservative party and joined Labour in July – presided over the opening procedures of the committee's meeting on Tuesday morning. However Cllr Louise Kennedy-Dalby quickly brought the matter up through a point of order at the beginning of the meeting when she questioned Cllr Leslie's position. 'Given the current state of party membership, does the convener not think that presiding over any of this meeting is outlandish given they made their choice on July 2 public yet failed to tell the council until July 30?' she said. 'That they had joined the Labour party and not resigning right away as the proper thing would have been to do, and continuing to claim the extra pay and power that this position provides.' Cllr Kennedy-Dalby claimed that the election for the new convener only came about due to an SNP motion which has been mooted over Cllr Leslie's leadership of the committee. Cllr Leslie said it had been the first meeting since she changed political party. 'I am resigning as convener, I took the agenda planning prior to that simply because no one was there as convener and I believe I had a responsibility to do that,' she said. 'I don't believe there is anything in the standing orders in the committee powers to forbid me to do that.' SNP councillor John Beare disagreed and quoted a rule of the committee that a member of the council administration should not be a convener of any scrutiny committee. He added: 'It is quite explicit.' Cllr Leslie responded: 'Should not, rather than must not. I am handing it over this morning.' Before Liberal Democrat councillor Eugene Clarke was elected as the new convener, the now-Labour councillor for Burntisland, Kinghorn and Western Kirkcaldy reflected on her time in the role. 'There has been a lot of work been carried out by this committee over the past number of years,' she said. 'We have covered a wide range of subjects where I believe we have worked constructively cross party. 'Items such as swimming, we scrutinised around relationships and behaviour in our schools and thoroughly investigated school meals offering. More recently we have examined the language offering in schools and we have done extra work around this. 'This committee has also been presented with two reports looking at young people in Fife who have English as an additional language. 'I think this committee has clearly expressed our support for all asylum seeking and young refugee people in Fife and I welcome that. 'I hope everyone feels I have worked collaboratively and constructively to all members over the past four years.' While Cllr Clarke takes up the role of convener, Conservative councillor Dave Dempsey won the vote for depute convener.