THE SNP’s largest affiliate has called for a change in the way the ruling National Executive Committee meets as the first step to improving “governance, transparency and democracy within the party”.
Bill Ramsay, the convener of the SNP Trade Union Group and its some 12,000 members, said that the ruling committee should be meeting in-person as some of its members “have never actually conversed face-to-face”.
Ramsay said that the NEC had not met in-person since the start of the pandemic, which raised its own problems.
He told The National: “Until I moved a motion last autumn to introduce transparent voting – soon after I rejoined the NEC after a gap of more than three years – there was no way of telling where NEC members stood on any decisions, minor or great, because the voting system concealed this. Members only saw the results of any voting as percentages.
“Whether this de facto concealed system allowed the administrators to see how individual NEC members voted, I cannot say.”
Ramsay said the NEC should move to a hybrid system of meetings allowing people who cannot be there in-person to attend remotely.
He said: “As the Trade Union Group’s representative on the SNP’s National Executive Committee, I am keen that we combine in-person and online meeting again on a regular basis.
“There are issues facing the party which require face-to-face engagement, collaboration, and people working together directly.
“Yet as far as I am aware this has not happened since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020. That means that there are members of the NEC who have never actually conversed face-to-face.”
He went on: “Last year I also suggested we move to hybrid in-person and online meetings, but this was resisted. Only with the leadership election do we appear to be returning, for a time anyway, to hybrid meetings.
“The two emergency NECs that have taken place since the resignation of the current First Minister have been online, and papers to discuss the timescale of the current election were sent to NEC members with less than 45 minutes notice.
“The next NEC on April 1 will be live, I am told, with an online element for those who cannot attend, I assume. This strikes me as the way forward for the future.
“Our SNP TUG executive fully backs the call on the leadership candidates to support in-person meetings. This is the first of a range of proposals which need to be considered in relation to good governance, transparency and democracy within the party.”
The SNP has been asked for comment.
