County Council reform

The timing couldn't be better.


Everyone is up in arms about politicians but far more important the whole system is being questioned.

At present the focus is on Parliament but what is happening on our doorstep needs to change:

The way our Town, District and County Councils are run needs a radical shake up.

Not only must this look at the way the the Councillors behave but even more important:

It must examine the performance of the "civil servants" who repeatedly are left by the Councillors to work in a totally unacceptable way.

It was the behaviour of those running the Neighbourhood Forum that was the final straw in my decision to become a County Councillor back in June last year:

1. They didn't advertise their meetings here in Ulverston
2. The Forum started off well in the early days but local people became disillusioned when it became clear that it was the County Councillors that were running the show. Some forums in the UK are brilliant and provide a valuable means of good communication between the public and the politicians. The key phrase you will see in these good forums is "Each (forum) is run by a committee of volunteers" - not the politicians. This is true in many parts of the UK but not here.
3. Instead of enabling community discussions it's main function has become the distribution of small grants to those "in the know" that they can be obtained - very few in Ulverston itself.
4. It stifled important discussions so that the topic of Affordable Housing was held in Swarthmoor Hall on a cold November evening and not the Coronation Hall that had been promised. Attempts to have this meeting rescheduled were thwarted by Cllr Kolbe.
5. Despite questioning the officers running the Forums throughout Cumbria, no change in the set up of the Forums here was possible. The only way with a chance of this was to become a Councillor myself!
   

Another area for reform is the procedure accompanying public participation in the council meetings.

In practice this is often a farce:

Councillor Geoff Cook who chaired the county meeting in Kendal when the Highways Department were questioned about their supervision of the contractors working on the cobbles in Market Street did not take the question seriously.

He allowed a totally irrelevant answer to be given even though this was pointed out to him. Furthermore none of the Councillors appeared to understand what was going on. The result was - nothing registered. Action came not from the County but from the contractors who recognised that they were at fault.

As you will see from my first post here I am intent on doing things and not talking about them