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If you struggle to remember when to put your bins out, you can now call on Alexa to tell you. This is an additional feature, for those people who already use Alexa at home, and supports our online bin calendar look-up and downloadable calendar. It is part of the council’s ongoing commitment to delivering new and useful digital services. This 'skill' as it is called by Amazon, allows you to ask your smart device when your council bins will next be collected.  We will be adding other council-related information to the service over the next year.

More pupils at Rothesay Joint Campus would like to walk, scoot or cycle to school than currently do and a new project is looking at ways to help them achieve that – but we need your help too. Rothesay’s New School Run is an exciting and ambitious new design project to define what changes are needed, post-pandemic, to allow young people in Rothesay to get to school differently.

Employers in �鶹���� and Bute are being reminded that a work permit is required for all young people aged between 14 and 16 who work part-time while still at school. �鶹���� and Bute Council is committed to the protection of children in employment, and has a number of byelaws which state the rules and regulations governing the employment of children – one of which is a valid work permit. The work permit is free of charge and must be signed by the head teacher from the young person’s school, as well as a parental guardian and employer.

Are you considering becoming a childminder but anxious about the impact it could have on your own children? Think again.Rachael Handy from Kilcreggan has been childminding for 18 years and believes that her job has not only benefitted her, but also her two children. “I honestly believe both my children have learned many valuable social and emotional developmental skills during my career due to the adjustments that must be made while having other children in the house,” she said.

From amateur swimming clubs to Climate friendly action groups, outdoor activities to community gardens and woodlands – these are just some of community projects set to benefit from the Council’s Supporting Communities Fund. The Fund is available to a range of groups including voluntary, charities and social enterprises. This year the council received 93 applications. A list of all the awards can be found on the Council website at 

�鶹���� and Bute Council has approved a proposal to provide free milk for all pupils in the area’s primary schools. The decision comes ahead of the roll out of free school meals in primaries from August 2021 and the adoption of new Healthy Food in Schools Guidance in April. A 10p charge was originally introduced in 2015 for all pupils who paid for a school meal with milk, the aim being to offset the higher than average purchase costs the Council paid for providing milk in schools.

As pupils across �鶹���� and Bute prepare to break-up today for the school summer holidays, the Council's Policy Lead for Education, Councillor Yvonne McNeilly, has issued a special message to pupils, staff and parents."We’re almost at the end of the school year and what a year it’s been. Nothing could have prepared us for the challenges we’ve had to overcome in the last 12 months, particularly in our schools, but the way in which staff, pupils and parents have coped is truly remarkable," she said.

Estimates show that there will be £33 million less for council services in �鶹���� and Bute over the next five years, with the council having to make another £2.5 million of savings in 2022/23 alone. Council has agreed its approach for identifying ways in which to meet these challenges. This will involve:

Ever wondered what it would be like to be a childminder? Here, husband and wife duo, Dee and Brian Pennock from Taynuilt, share their experience... In the summer of 2008 my husband and I became registered childminders in �鶹���� and Bute. We both came from backgrounds which had no connection whatsoever to do with children or childminding but were both looking for a different challenge……. we found it!

The Scottish Government has revised guidance for the hospitality sector during the knockout stages of Euro 2020.