Aberdeenshire Council education committee seeks a new religious representative

ABERDEENSHIRE Council is looking for a religious representative to sit on its education and children's services committee.

Scottish law requires education committees to have three representatives from religious bodies, including one from the Church of Scotland, one from the Roman Catholic Church and a third selected by the Council.

The Council inviting religious representatives to apply to fill a vacancy on its committee.

Successful applicants could come from any religious group, but must represent the views of a significant proportion of believers in Aberdeenshire and will have the right to vote on committee matters.

An Aberdeenshire Council spokesperson said: "In appointing our third representative, Aberdeenshire Council is required to 'have regard… to the comparative strength within their area of all the churches and denominational bodies having duly constituted charges or other regularly appointed places of worship there.'

"Taking into account the first two appointments indicated above, the Council has decided that the third person should not be a member of the Church of Scotland or the Roman Catholic Church.

"Any nomination should be accompanied by information relating to how representative that nomination would be of other faith groups in the area and should indicate the comparative strength of the nominee’s own faith group, in terms of numbers of worshippers and numbers of places of worship.

"Once the nomination deadline has passed, the relevant details will be submitted to members of Aberdeenshire Council for a final decision regarding the filling of the available place."

The rules requiring Councils to involve religious bodies in education committees are set out in Section 124 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.

Churches and denominational bodies can submit nominations by e-mailing: committee.services@aberdeenshire.gov.uk by the deadline of Friday, August 26.

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