Tuesday 29 April 2008

More on Scrutiny

Power Station Plumes on a Still Morning.

My attendance at the last Scrutiny Meeting (Culture, Economy and Sustainability) was because of Blacka Moor. An item on the agenda dealt with the Disposal of Land and Leases to non council organisations, directly relevant to the controversial and shocking handing over of Blacka to SWT.

My previous post mourned the fact that councillors seemed unable to make a significant impact on council policy. An example of how the system works to disempower councillors and by extension ordinary citizens is found in the documents presented to board members before the meeting. Allowing for one or two blanks the latest amounted to some 94 pages of reports to be scrutinised. I think it can be more than this. The report I was interested in was not available until the Monday before the Thursday of the meeting. How can this be enough time? And how on earth do they arrive at the combining of these three elements of the council’s work, Culture Economy and Sustainability into the concern of one committee?

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