Eight councillors were expected to sit on West Dunbartonshire Council’s licensing committee last Wednesday to discuss and vote on serious issues — but only two of them showed.

Three men were applying for taxi licences, one man was applying for a booking office licence to set up a taxi business in the town, and one woman was requesting a late night catering licence.

Each applicant had invested time and money into their applications to earn a living and all, except one, attended the committee meeting.

Police made representations in some of the cases to make councillors aware of past convictions — and it was then up to the committee to decide whether or not the applicants were fit and proper people to be serving the public.

However, it was left only to committee chairman, Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, and his Labour colleague Councillor John Mooney to have a quick chat before taking decisions.

The following elected members did not appear: Jim Brown (Clydebank Central, SNP), Jim Finn (Kilpatrick, SNP), Jonathan McColl (Lomond, SNP), Douglas McAllister (Kilpatrick, Labour), Thomas Rainey (Dumbarton, Labour) and Hazel Sorrell (Lomond, Labour).

This comes just six weeks after the opposition SNP group moaned about the lack of seats on committees for its councillors.

Licensing committee meetings run just once every two months and generally last between one and two hours, while full council meetings have been cut back from monthly to quarterly.

The councillors who never attended last week’s licensing committee are paid salaries ranging between £16,355 and £24,616 to represent people living in their ward.

A spokesman for Taxpayers Scotland said: “It’s an absolute disgrace that taxpayers paying for councillors to administer community matters are receiving nothing for our money.

“The leader of the council, Martin Rooney, needs to crack the whip and tell his colleagues that their generous salaries are paid for them to do their work.” SNP Councillor Jim Finn and three Labour councillors Douglas McAllister, Tommy Rainey and Hazel Sorrell submitted their apologies in advance of the meeting. SNP councillors Jonathan McColl and Jim Brown claimed afterwards that they informed the council well in advance they would not make it, but this was not recorded by council chiefs.

Provost McAllister said: “I had provost duties on Wednesday morning and that’s the reason I wasn’t there. You are quite correct to highlight this, it’s not great to have only two in attendance. My record over the last nine years of serving on the committee is relatively good however “I also meet with the taxi trade on a regular basis as vice chair of the committee.” Councillor Rainey said: “I think this is the first licensing committee I have missed. Unfortunately on the day I was not well enough to attend, hence I submitted my apologies.” Councillor Sorrell never responded to our telephone message or email.

SNP group leader Jonathan McColl issued a response on behalf of the three nationalist councillors that never attended, saying: “Myself and Councillor Finn had prearranged medical appointments set by the NHS and submitted our apologies well in advance, while Councillor Brown had a family emergency.

“We all take our jobs very seriously, in fact the three of us have taken pay cuts to ensure we can devote all of our time and be full time councillors.

“But we’re only human and the same things that make others miss a day at work affect us just the same. It’s unfortunate that we all had issues at the same time.” At the full council meeting on August 28, Councillor McColl tabled a motion demanding more places for SNP councillors on committees.

He stated that the overall political make-up of West Dunbartonshire Council saw the Labour administration hold 55.5 per cent of power compared to the opposition’s 45.5 per cent, and added: “This balance is not reflected in the make up of committees and has particular concern with corporate services, IRED, housing and communities and educational services where the political balance is opposition 32 per cent, administration 68 per cent.

He then called for officers to produce a report “to consider making changes in the interests of fairness and democracy.” This was rejected by council.