I can lead off from a North Ayrshire point of view. A number of our island communities and councillors have said to us that someone who does not live on the island will have difficulty in knowing what happens during the evening once the ferries stop running. So many community group activities and meetings take place in the evening that it is quite difficult to keep in touch with what is happening unless you consistently stay on the island.
There is also the issue of the ferries going off occasionally and so on. For example, if there is a civil emergency such as there was on Arran a few years ago, when the whole island shut down after a snow storm, a council member who did not live there might not be on the island to support the community. That is the key issue concerning members who do not reside on the island.
As regards the impact of switching to one or two members, I am afraid to say that in North Ayrshire we have a specific issue with the bill. It clearly amends the provision that there can be one or two members, but it does not amend the provision in local government legislation that provides that there has to be a certain ratio of electorate to councillors across the entire local authority area. For example, in North Ayrshire, the current ratio is 3,000 electorate per councillor. That ratio would remain the same once the bill is implemented, meaning that Arran, which has a population of about 3,800, would end up with one councillor rather than the two resident councillors that it currently has, and Cumbrae, with a population of 1,100, would end up with no councillors. Had Cumbrae been located in the Western Isles or Orkney, for example, with their quota of a councillor per 800 of electorate, it would have ended up with its own ward.
It is important to recall that that change was originally driven by the Arran community, which met Derek Mackay when he was Minister for Transport and Islands, and it was included in the consultation paper. I suspect that the Arran community will be surprised to learn that the impact of the change is for the number of their resident council members to be reduced from two to one.
As will probably be obvious from our consultation response when it comes, we think that that provision needs to be changed to allow the Local Government Boundary Commission to set a ratio for individual islands that is different from that applying to the mainland of an authority.