MY loyal readers – all two of you – will be devastated to know this is my final column for the Tele as council leader.

Seven weeks tomorrow voters will go to the polls to elect the 22 members of the new Inverclyde Council.

While you won’t have a direct say in who will be the next leader, indirectly you will influence the decision through the councillors you elect.

The decisions the council takes and the services it provides affect many important aspects of our lives.

The council leader has a crucial role in providing political direction to officers and in articulating the priorities of the administration.

He or she also represents the council on the national stage and is a key player in partnership working with other public agencies and the third and private sectors.

I first took up the role in 2007. That was two years after the critical best value audit report of 2005 when Inverclyde was dubbed – somewhat unfairly – ‘the worst council in Scotland’.

As the opposition leader at the time I accepted my party shared some of the blame for the poor report but more importantly I gave an undertaking that Labour councillors would work to change the council for the better.

It is a mark of the progress we’ve made since then that Audit Scotland have only recently returned to undertake another full best value audit.

While the report on this audit will not be published until May due to Scottish Government rules, I’m confident it will affirm the transformation the council has gone through in the past 10 years.

Of course there will be areas where we still need to improve – no organisation is perfect – but I’m sure the report will also outline the many strengths of the council and the high quality of the services being delivered by our hardworking and committed staff.

The improvements we’ve made didn’t just happen by chance.

A crucial factor has been the strong and effective leadership given at both political and senior management levels.

A political leadership that had a clear vision of what it wanted to achieve and a management team – led by a very able chief executive – who had the skills required to turn that vision into a reality.

A political leadership that knew what its priorities were and was prepared to take the hard decisions required to deliver those priorities.

A political leadership that listened to advice from officers and took on board the views of other parties and individual councillors.

A political leadership that was in touch with its communities.

A political leadership that focused on the day job and not on the constitution.

A political leadership that stood up for Inverclyde rather than kowtowing to political masters in Edinburgh or London.

And above all a political leadership that could be trusted to act with honesty and integrity at all times and in the interests of the many and not the few.

Our opponents will be telling you over the next seven weeks ‘it’s time for a change’.

Those of you with long memories will recall what happened in 2003 when Inverclyde last voted for change by electing the Liberal Democrats in a landslide. Four years later they lost nine of their 13 seats on the council.

So if you are thinking of voting for a change on May 4 make sure you are convinced it will be a change for the better.