Dundee Labour MSP Jenny Marra accused the city council of failing in its duty by not attending a major conference on offshore decommissioning.
The local authority has denied the charge, saying it was represented by its Forth Ports partner at the three day Offshore Decom gathering in St Andrews last week.
The council chose instead to go to a conference on offshore wind which clashed with Offshore Decom, but Ms Marra was not impressed.
Upwards of 1,500 jobs are said to be destined for Dundee through the decommissioning of redundant North Sea oil and gas installations and infrastructure.
Forth Ports is ploughing £10 million to position the Port of Dundee as a key base for the multi-billion-pound decom and renewables sectors off Scotland’s east coast.
Ms Marra was one of 450 delegates at the St Andrews conference, and noted that Fife Council was represented by four officials with a fifth from Invest in Fife.
In a letter to Dundee City Council chief executive David Martin she said she was “very disappointed” to note that the city council was completely absent.
The gathering had opened a day after Forth Ports announced a substantial investment for a decom waste hub at at the port.
She stated: “ It seems very worrying that the day after such a significant announcement, our local authority is taking such little interest in the possibilities of decommissioning that there was nobody from your energy or economic development teams attending the conference.
“The content of the presentations was extremely useful and I have no doubt would have assisted Dundee City Council both with the decom bid in the City Deal and our general understanding of this industrial opportunity for Dundee.”
A spokesman for Dundee City Council said: “The event clashed with another important gathering relating to offshore wind, hosted by a company behind proposals to develop off the east coast.
“We are keen to maintain that firm’s awareness of Dundee.”
Forth Ports, with whom the council was pursuing decom development, was at St Andrews and council officers had been fully briefed on the event, he added.
Ms Marra said the city’s wider economic stake in decom opportunities meant it “cannot simply rely on partners to plan for the city’s economic future.”
She believed the council has a responsibility to balance industrial opportunities and ensure each one is chased down if it means jobs for the city.
