Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Council disband two area committees in favour of new local forums

Highland Council leader Margaret Davidson.
Highland Council leader Margaret Davidson.

More local decision making has been promised by Highland Council after it agreed to disband two area committees in favour of four new local forums.

Two committees covering Caithness and Sutherland as well as Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey will be broken up as part of the new organisation.

They will be replaced with four separate community forums, which will have expanded powers for local decision making and planning.

The moves are part of the new council administration’s Highland First programme and have been dubbed “local democratic experiments”.

It is proposed that Skye will gain similar separate arrangements from its current association with Ross and Cromarty, following further discussions.

Lochaber will retain its area committee but will also gain a separate local planning partnership.

Among the powers devolved to the new forums will be control over local community services budgets, with greater engagement from communities to decide local priorities.

The Inverness city committee will continue in its current form at present but may be changed depending on the views of councillors.

Area committees had previously been scrapped in 2007 in faour of centralised meetings in Inverness.

But they were reintroduced in 2012 by the council’s previous SNP led coalition with the Liberal Democrats and Labour.

The current independent led administration are responsible for the latest changes.

Council leader Margaret Davidson said: “These are golden opportunities and up to us to make the most of it.

“There is a huge appetite to go back to localised committees and to do more community planning, with more decision making and more service planning. The Community Empowerment Act gives us the tools to take this forward. We have really good practice in Highland.

She added: “We do need to be absolutely clear about what this will cost us and we need to reduce travel time for officers.

“We need to work out how we evaluate what we are doing and that we are actually doing what our communities want.”

The council say that the new arrangements will evolve over time and feedback from planning partners will be reported back to the council in October.