TWEEDDALE’s two Conservative councillors are to serve on the revived scrutiny committee of Scottish Borders Council.

And one of the duo – Gavin Logan (Tweeddale East) – was yesterday (Thursday) appointed chairman of the watchdog body.

He will be joined by Keith Cockburn (Tweeddale West) on a panel which was scrapped in 2012 when the current SNP/Lib Dem/Independent administration took control at Newtown.

But a recent review of decision-making concluded that, since then, service committees which were supposed to monitor their own performance had singularly failed to do so.

Councillors unanimously agreed last month to resurrect scrutiny in a bid to restore “openness and accountability” to the way business is transacted at SBC.

The panel is charged to monitor the performance of the council, undertake value for money investigations and, if necessary, call in the decisions of the 16-strong executive which is being strengthened to take on the responsibilities of the now defunct committees for education, social work and roads.

Although retired farmer Mr Logan, elected in 2007, will preside, the Conservative opposition group will have only three places on the nine-member watchdog.

The third Tory on the committee will be Simon Mountford from Kelso, while the vice-chairman will be Independent backbencher Watson McAteer, a former divisional police commander who won a by-election in Hawick and Denholm earlier this year.

Mr Logan has been a persistent critic of the current ruling administration, taking public issue with many recent decisions, including the scrapping of green waste collections and the refusal to block access to pay day loan sites from council-owned computers.

After his appointment was confirmed at yesterday’s full council meeting, Mr Logan told the Peeblesshire: “I am delighted the scrutiny committee, of which I was a member in the last council, has been re-established. In the past, it carried out several useful reviews and successfully scrutinised many aspects of how the council operates.

“I’m confident the new committee will carry on this good work and I’m particularly delighted to be joined by my Tweeddale colleague Keith Cockburn.

“Keith has established himself as a hard-working and popular councillor and I know he will bring much to the committee.”