Roll out of the vaccine continues ahead of schedule in West Dunbartonshire. As of March 1, our seven-day infection rate per 100,000 population has fallen to 99; a significant achievement that bodes well for our communities going forward.

Looking at the granular data, there’s a real mixed bag of results across Clydebank. Verified government data showed that at March 1, 0-2 cases have been reported in Faifley but 232 in Whitecrook.

I know you’re sick of hearing it from me, but please keep following the rules to save lives. As schools return and lockdown restrictions start to ease again in the coming weeks, it will be tempting to take that extra chance and visit someone you shouldn’t, or make a journey you really don’t need to, but doing so could genuinely end someone’s life or give them permanent life-limiting conditions.

Following the decision to freeze everyone’s council tax, I’m pleased to confirm that last week, the council unanimously agreed to implement the lower end 1.5 per cent rise in rents asked for by tenants. We understand that people are struggling. As I’ve said previously, councillors are not detached from real life. We live in our communities and we, our friends and our families are affected by the decisions we make.

That makes it even more astonishing to me that Labour and so-called Community Party councillors joined with the Tories and voted to reject the option of using some council money held in our housing revenue account (HRA) reserves to protect council services from reduction or deletion. Thank goodness Cllr O’Neill left the meeting and the SNP were able to defeat Labour’s proposal with the Provost’s casting vote.

The Scottish Government are severely constrained by UK Treasury and our draft settlement is tight. I’m hopeful that we won’t need the money, but to vote to rule it out as an option is not only deeply disappointing, but also irresponsible – and would have left us with the possibility of having to make an extra £1.3m of cuts to services if the money available to the Scottish Government to pass to councils leaves us short when we set our budget on March 22.

Not all councils have HRAs, but of those who do, East Dunbartonshire, Dundee, South Lanarkshire, Moray, Falkirk, Renfrewshire, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Aberdeen City, North Ayrshire and West Lothian have all taken this option to use reserves; these are SNP, Labour, Conservative and Liberal run councils protecting their local services.

Every West Dunbartonshire Labour councillor voted in favour of cutting your services, rather than using money that’s sitting doing nothing in the bank. Surely Cllr Douglas McAllister must consider whether it’s appropriate that he continues running for the Scottish Parliament under these circumstances?