We are now at the end of our second year as Co-Conveners of the Green group, and it has been a real honour to convene such an amazing group of Green councillors for Edinburgh.
The city is facing real challenges – dealing with a lack of funding from national governments, becoming a modern accessible place while respecting heritage rules and regulations, and coping with the effects of climate change which are already being felt. All of which makes it even more important to have strong Green voices advocating for climate justice, equality, and better lives for everyone who lives, works, studies or visits the city.
You can read more about the work of individual councillors to progress our manifesto in the portfolio reports in our annual report.
Download the Annual Report here
However, alongside these wins, it’s important to know that lots of our work sits outside the portfolio structure too, for example our budget successes over the past 2 years – achieved both through ‘shenanigans’ and more conventional methods – to secure resources for climate action, and our work to keep Palestine high on the council agenda.
But as well as policy wins, over the past two years we have worked hard to try and change the culture of a council which is often described as the most ‘traditional’ in Scotland (and we all know what that means…). And we’re beginning to see some of this work pay off. From a council which couldn’t even provide an accessible space for us all to work from at the beginning of term and which saw equality impact assessments as a tick-box exercise, we have managed to secure dedicated staff resource to work on equalities. We’re also seeing council officers reach out to the Greens before submitting reports to check that they reflect our priorities, and we are beginning to see a more collaborative approach from other parties in the council.
We’re also seeing a closer relationship between councillors and our amazing party members. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Member-Councillor Forums are the highlight of our months and bring all of the councillors renewed hope and enthusiasm (and a reminder that we are in the right party). And although paused for the General Election, our Manifesto Working Group will mean that councillors are continuing to carry out the aims and priorities of the Edinburgh Green Party.
So we’d like to finish up our stint as co-conveners with a huge thank you to you, our members.
Alys & Ben