The week ahead...

Monday
Evening meeting of the Kelburn Action Group.
Tuesday
Afternoon meetings of the Policy & Resources Committee pre-agenda and Education & Communities Committee. In the evening I will be attending a meeting of Park Farm TARA.
Wednesday
Attending a conference on 'More Choices, More Chances' in the morning in Greenock Town Hall. In the afternoon I have my weekly meetings with the Chief Executive and Labour Group. In the evening I hope to attend a meeting of Port Glasgow East Community Council.
Thursday
Day 1 of COSLA Conference.
Friday
Day 2 of COSLA Conference.

The week ahead...

Monday
No Council commitments at this time.
Tuesday
Attending the shortlisting panel for the Riverside Inverclyde Chief Executive post in the morning. No other Council commitments at this time.
Wednesday
I have an all Members' briefing in early afternoon followed by the Inverclyde Alliance Board pre-agenda and my weekly meetings with the Chief Executive and Labour Group. In the evening I am meeting with Inverclyde Youth Council along with my colleague Councillor James McColgan, the Council's Young Persons' Champion.
Thursday
In the afternoon I have a briefing on the Council's roads investment plans for the coming financial year followed by a meeting of the Environment & Regeneration Committee and a meeting with the Port Glasgow Traders' Association. In the evening I have a meeting of Kilmacolm New Community Centre Company Board.
Friday
At lunch time I am attending the launch of the new I Heat project. In the late afternoon I have a meeting with Duncan McNeil MSP and Iain McKenzie MP. This is followed by door to door canvassing for the Better Together campaign.
Saturday
In the morning more canvassing for Better Together. In the afternoon I am attending the Port Glasgow Bulb Show.
Sunday
More canvassing in the afternoon for Better Together.

The week ahead...

Monday
Attending a suicide prevention strategy event in Clydebank for part of the day. In the evening I will be attending a meeting of Port Glasgow High School Parent Council.
Tuesday
In the morning I have meetings with Labour Council Leaders in Glasgow. In the afternoon I have an all Members' briefing and a meeting with officers.
Wednesday
In the early afternoon I have an interview with Inverclyde Radio followed by my weekly meeting with the Chief Executive. I then have the weekly meeting of the Labour Group.
Thursday
In the morning I have an meeting with Government Minister David Mundell MP to discuss welfare reform issues. In the afternoon I am attending a walk about in the Kelburn estate and a meeting of the Inverclyde Community Health and Care Partnership Sub-Committee. In the evening I will be attending Mass to celebrate Catholic Education Week in St Stephen's High School.
Friday
I will be attending the COSLA Leaders' meeting in Edinburgh. In the evening I will be attending a meeting of Greenock & Inverclyde Constituency Labour Party.

Some more words the Nats don't want to hear...

"Web sites are put into categories by external organisations. Our web content filters use categories initially and then we apply rules to unblock excepted individual web sites on request.

The Society and Culture category is blocked by default for pupils in schools (not teachers) - this was agreed by Education Services in consultation with schools, as it contains a wide variety of subjects - home life and family related topics, including weddings, births and funerals; parenting tips and family planning; non-pornographic LGBT issues; foreign cultures and socio-cultural information and non-explicit tattoo and piercing parlours.

We have no information about why the Yes Scotland web site is classified as Society and Culture, rather than Politics.

Beyond the default categories, Internet content filtering in schools is controlled at the individual school level. Category filtering is the first 'level' of default filtering that the council uses. Subsequently, schools can then request that individual web sites are unblocked and there is a standard, agreed process for this by an authorised person in the school logging a request with the ICT Servicedesk. Once this request is agreed by education services, ICT will apply an exception rule to the requested web site and it is then available for viewing."

The words the Nats don't want to hear...

There is absolutely no question of any site being deliberately blocked. Our IT service have sorted out the small glitch which appears to have caused this.

The first line of the council’s content filtering system is based on website categories. The Yes Scotland website was categorised under ‘society and culture’, which is blocked by default for pupils in schools.

No-one at the council or school was involved in deciding the category of the website, which meant that it was not accessible.

As soon as we were alerted to this situation yesterday (Thursday) morning the site was unblocked by applying more detailed filtering rules, to ensure it could be accessed.

The week ahead...

Monday
In the morning I have interviews for prospective Board Members for Riverside Inverclyde. In the early afternoon I am attending a meeting in Glasgow between Labour Group Leaders and Labour's Scottish Leader Johann Lamont and some of her shadow ministers. This is one of our regular get togethers to discuss common issues and campaigning strategy.
Tuesday
In the early afternoon I have my weekly meeting with the Chief Executive. In the evening I have a surgery in Boglestone Community Centre followed by a meeting of the St Stephen's High School Parent Council.
Wednesday
In the late afternoon I have a meeting of the Labour Group followed by a meeting of Newark Primary School Parent Council.
Thursday
In the afternoon I have a Members' briefing; a meeting of the Local Police and Fire Scrutiny Sub-Committee; and then a meeting of the full Council where I will present the Administration's budget proposals. This is followed by a meeting of the Port Glasgow Town Centre Working Group and Slaemuir Tenants' and Residents' Association.
Friday
In the evening I am due to attend the Inverclyde Sports Personality Awards in Greenock Town Hall.

The pound in your pocket...

On the 18^th of September this year Scots 16 years of age and older will face the most significant democratic decision in our country’s history. For many adults this decision is extremely daunting. I can only imagine then how my fifteen years old son and his peers will feel when they go into the polling station in September.

The referendum is not like a general election where we can change the government every few years if we don’t like what they have been doing. It is also not like previous referenda, such as those on membership of the EU, the establishment of the Scottish Parliament or, more recently, the introduction of the alternative vote system for Westminster elections. These decisions were, or are, all potentially reversible.

If we vote to separate Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom on 18 September there will be no going back. It is a one-way ticket. Before we make such a momentous decision therefore it is crucial that we know the consequences.

Polling evidence shows that for those who are undecided how to vote the economy is the major concern. They want to know what currency we will have; who will be setting our interest and mortgage rates; will our taxes go up or down; what will happen to pensions; and generally will we better or worse off?

Until recently the SNP assured us that there was no question that we would form a currency union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland after separation and that we would continue to use the pound and the Bank of England would continue to set our key interest rates.

It is becoming clear that this isn’t going to happen. The SNP and the other parties involved in Yes Scotland must now let us know what their Plan B is.

Are we going to join the Euro? Are we going to have a separate Scottish Currency? Or are we going to continue to use the pound without the consent of the Bank of England and without any influence over it, similar to the way that Panama uses the US dollar?

We really need an answer to this fundamental question as many other economic consequences flow from it.

Of course there are deep divisions within Yes Scotland on the currency question. While Alex Salmond and the SNP stubbornly cling to the forlorn hope of a currency union with the rest of the UK, senior figures like its Chairman Dennis Canavan and Green MSP Patrick Harvie openly support a separate Scottish currency.

In most countries elections tend to be decided by economic factors. As they say in America: “its the economy stupid”.

It appears increasingly likely that the outcome of the 2014 Scottish referendum will be determined by which side is trusted most on the economy. In the end it could be “the pound in your pocket” that decides it.