Political blog, June 18: MPs expenses cover up and KCC reshuffle completed
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Today was supposed to be the day that you and I could, for
the first time, go through our MPs' expenses claims and discover
just how our elected politicians had been using public money.
Not for the first time in this saga, there is a sense that the
commitment to transparency and accountability has not been
enthusiastically embraced by the Commons' authorities.
Much of the gory detail has, of course, already been published
by the Daily Telegraph. But you'll be hard-pressed
to find the same kind of detail in the "official" publication by
the House of Commons, which has redacted vast swathes of material
in the name of "security" and personal privacy. In other words,
pages and pages of documents are blacked out - leading to more
complaints. Still, there is plenty of material of interest and
given that reforms are now certain, this will be the first and only
chance to see material of this kind.
YOU CAN READ OUR STORY ABOUT CLAIMS BY
KENT MPS HERE
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More reshuffle news from County Hall. Cllr Paul
Carter has completed - more or less - his cabinet
reshuffle and it's interesting to see a few new faces among those
taking on junior roles and others moving aside.
There are jobs for several newcomers elected on June 4 to
what are officially called "lead member" roles but which Cllr
Carter has told colleagues should be known as "deputy cabinet
members."
Among these deputies are: Cllr Jenny Whittle,
who takes on a role as lead member for learning and was
elected to the Maidstone Rural East division and is a
former staff officer for the leader. There's also a job for
Gary Cooke, elected as Maidstone East councillor
as the man in charge of "resources, capital programme and
infrastructure" - principally building schools stuff. Interesting
to note that along with Sarah Hohler, there's a distinct west Kent
bias to the children's services directorate - albeit balanced a
little by the retention of Cllr Leyland Ridings from east Kent as
deputy cabinet member for vulnerable children.
Another post goes to newcomer Andrew Wickham,
who represents Ashford Rural East. He takes on the job of deputy
cabinet member regeneration and economic development.Cllr
Avtar Sandhu of Dartford North East comes in as deputy
cabinet member for Communities, under Cllr Mike Hill.
Meanwhile, there's a recall for Susan
Carey, the Ealham Valley councillor, who comes in as
deputy finance member to Cllr John Simmonds. Intriguingly, this
pairing was the one that used to look after the education brief
back in 2007. That was until a rather acrimonious fall out between
Cllr Simmonds and the leader.
In a letter setting out the changes, Cllr Carter writes that
while he is calling these appointment "deputy cabinet members" they
will still have to be known as "lead members" because of
"officialdom."
Howeve, he writes: "However, within the group I can see no
reason why we cannot use this title."
Thursday, June 18 2009
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