The Scottish Office is to be asked to consider a new rescue package from North Lanarkshire Council which could save...
The Scottish Office is to be asked to consider a new rescue package from North Lanarkshire Council which could save all the 1,400 jobs in the authority's troubled direct labour organistation.
Richard Lyle, leader of the council's SNP grouping and a member of the liaison committee, said: 'What we want is meaningful discussions with the Scottish Office. We have only been allowed to meet them once. Our proposal is to bring in a commercial management team to run the DLO. That way the council will be in a partnership operation.'
The Scotsman (p6) also reports that Donald Dewar, the Scottish secretary, is to be asked to amend his directive ordering the closure of the DLO by 1 May next year.
The new plan, drawn up by the council's cross-party liaison group, effectively replaces a plan submitted to the local government minister, Henry McLeish, last month which would have meant the loss of 600 jobs and the sale of a third of the DLO's maintenance contracts to the private sector.
The new plan envisages the existing structure remaining more or less intact but being managed by a private management group hired from the commercial sector.
A Scottish Office spokesman said: 'North Lanarkshire put two options to us and we... plan to give a response in weeks rather than months.'
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