NORTH Ayrshire’s Councillors can say whatthey wantin council meetings - and that includes not being accurate.

The bombshell was dropped at the full council meeting last Wednesday afternoon when a point of order was made before a question from Ardrossan and Arran Councillor, Timothy Billings, was asked.

His SNP counterpart in the ward, Cllr Tony Gurney, asked if his question was allowed because he believed it to be false. The question surrounded whether or not the budgetwas cut for the Health and Social Care Partnership during negotiations earlier this year.

The SNP argued that as the budget went up, that there were no cuts and Cllr Billings argued that this was not the case but then altered his question slightly and added the words ‘in my opinion’. T

he council’s Head of Democratic Services, Andrew Fraser said: “There is nothing in standing orders, or otherwise, which requires questions, motions or amendments to be factually accurate and of course they couldn’t be because there will always be an argument between parties who might disagree to the factual accuracy of something.

“So on that basis, it really doesn’t matter whether a motion, question or amendment is factually accurate. It is competent as it is, as long as it is not defamatory.” A council spokesperson said later: “The onus is on individual elected members to comply with the Councillors’ Code of Conduct and it isnot within the remit of the Provost – as chair of the full council meeting - to regulate this. “However, breach of the General Principles of the Code, including that of honesty, does not in itself constitute evidence of a breach of the Code. “The Guidance produced by the Standards Commission stresses that the chair of a meeting has a responsibility to ensure that the views of participants are allowed to be expressed, although abusive and offensive language or unnecessarily disruptive behaviour should not be tolerated. It is also important in a democracy not to interfere with councillors’ right of free speech unless essential.”