January 25: Scrutiny: a cure for insomnia
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HAVE Conservative backbench county councillors been
nobbled and told not to ask any awkward questions about KCC’s
budget and its planned council tax increase - 1.86 per cent or 2.57
per cent if asylum money owed doesn't come through?
I’ve no idea but this was the
suggestion made by opposition Lib Dem leader Cllr Trudy
Dean at a meeting of today’s cabinet scrutiny
committee at County Hall.
She began the meeting – which
turned out to be a tortuously dull affair and one that might be
handy to make available to insomniacs – by remarking that in all
the previous mini-scrutiny meetings to exam the council’s budget
plans, there had been only one question posed by a Conservative
backbencher.
"We understand that was an
instruction to Conservative members not to ask questions at policy
overview committees. That does seem quite strange."
A genuinely perplexed
Cllr John Simmonds, cabinet member for finance,
retorted that he "was as curious as you are" about the notion,
adding that he would rather welcome a few questions.
There was some predictable
splutterings of indignation from a couple of Conservatives present
at the very idea that they had been ordered not to raise anything
awkward.
All
very mysterious.
As it was, this was the closest
the meeting got to anything controversial, other than a bizarre
(frankly pointless) debate about whether it would be a waste of
finance officers’ time if they were asked to prepare a report on
how Kent County Council had fared in terms of Government grant
allocations since the year dot.
Conservative members argued that
it would be a waste of time, opposition parties argued it would
not. It transpired there was an independent report dating back to
2003 that shows KCC – as it often claims – has suffered
disproportionately when it comes to the allocation of central
Government grants and an offer was made by KCC’s finance director
Lynda McMullan to provide members of the committee with an up-dated
version.
So important was this issue that
the committee decided they needed to have a vote on the matter (ie
whether the finance team should be put to the trouble of re-casting
the existing report) and the vote was split five-five, leaving Cllr
Trudy Dean with the casting vote, which was in favour.
Yes, county councillors really
do spend their time on such important matters. Not for the first
time, I was left pondering exactly what this little political
skirmish had to do with scrutiny - or whether it migth just turn
out to be preparing the ground for some political point scoring at
the annual budget meeting.
Still, one thing we did learn is that KCC is to cut
the amount of money it spends on its controversial patient watchdog
scheme HealthWatch, with Cllr John Simmonds
pressed into admitting he was not "comfortable" with how much it
was costing given the amount of use people were making of
it.
The funding is to be cut from
£300,000 to £200,000 - a third.
Cllr Simmonds has not, I recall,
always been persuaded of the merits of HealthWatch. I remember him
flagging up his reservations when he used to be a member of....the
council's cabinet scrutiny committee.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Is Boris Island
dead in the water? That seems to be the consensus after David
Cameron averred on Friday that the plans for an estuary airport off
the north Kent coast as advocated by Boris Johnson would not be one
of the things that an incoming Conservative government would be
turning its mind to.
Mr Cameron said: "The party isn't putting forward that
approach or another runway at Heathrow."
Cameron rejects Boris Island: read our story
here>>>
That is more subtle than it
sounds. The careful framing of the apparent "rejection" still
leaves open the possibility that Boris may well continue developing
his ideas - even if the Conservative party nationally is
not.
Although without the support of
his leader and potentially the next PM, it might prove rather
tricky to get off the ground.
Monday, January 25 2010
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