The SNP has failed in an attempt to kick a major child abuse whistleblowing initiative into the long grass, writes former Edinburgh councillor and Herald columnist John McLellan

As Nicola Sturgeon was preparing to bring down the curtain on her long parliamentary career with a speech about support for children in the care system, so too were her SNP colleagues up the hill in Edinburgh’s City Chambers intervening in a move directly connected to the vilest abuses of young people in care.

Except Edinburgh Council’s SNP group was not trying to strengthen systems to protect vulnerable youngsters, but attempting to water down support for a new national whistleblowing service, a move which stemmed from multiple failures to act on the sounding of alarms about child abuse and corruption within the authority going back decades.

In a motion by the Conservatives’ Phil Doggart to Thursday’s full council meeting, councillors were asked to support the petition to the Scottish Parliament to establish an independent whistleblowing office for education and children’s services, raised by former Edinburgh councillors Alison Dickie (SNP) and Bill Cook (Labour), and retired Edinburgh teacher and whistleblower Christine Scott.

Grooming‑gang U‑turn shows why wider inquiry is vital

Budget brinkmanship puts Edinburgh’s Labour leadership on the line

Edinburgh’s latest row shows Scotland’s standards system isn’t working

From the Cavalcade to bins — what should Edinburgh’s Tourist Tax fund?

The Holyrood petitions committee judged the issue to be........

© Herald Scotland