17 January (Part 2) - Review of the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Function Sub-Group
The following report is from Nick Dowling of the Bexley Council Monitoring Group who
fell for my sob story of not being able to attend the Sub-Group meeting myself.
He asked me to add comment as I saw fit but it remains his personal account almost
entirely unchanged from his original draft.
He tells me that there were only five people in the public gallery and three of
those were councillors. Alex Sawyer very busy taking notes, and Melvin Seymour
and Chris Ball the Labour leader. Note 1
I’ve not been to one of these before, Overview & Scrutiny Committee meetings
themselves can be a trifle tedious, let alone sitting through the sub-group
paraphilia as well. However Malcolm had suggested it might be of interest and the
Agenda fascinated me – particularly the Member Questionnaire due to be discussed.
Intriguingly
at the start, councillor June Slaughter was heard apologising to the other councillors
for the fact that she had not attended the pre-meeting. She had not been
invited as being only a substitute member she was not on the general circulation list.
Note 2
It has often been said that every public meeting has already been rehearsed
beforehand and it is always nice to have these things unequivocally confirmed.
One can only speculate that there must be a jolly good reason why Bexley Council
- an organisation that claims to value and promote openness and transparency -
should deem it necessary to discuss matters behind closed doors and in secret;
and only then trot them out for the public.
Given this state of affairs it is no surprise that so many councillors appear bored and
disinterested at public meetings.
The first substantial item up for discussion was from Ed Hammond, an
ex-council officer, who was singing the praises of overview and scrutiny
generally. I guess he would do as he is employed by
The Centre for Public
Scrutiny, so he will have a vested interest in this sort of thing.
His opening suggestion for everybody to introduce themselves elicited nothing
more from the councillors than their names which he could have
read from their name plates. He demonstrated how it should be done when he waxed
lyrical on his roles in the overview and scrutiny arena but he did not try to involve the
councillors after their initially poor effort.
The chairwoman, Maxine Fothergill soon had her
tablet computer out and was much more interested in this and after ten minutes
or so everybody else looked suitably bored. I liked Mr. Hammond’s emphasis on ‘form
following function’ which in essence means you have to decide what you want
before you try and implement anything in order to achieve it. Now I have been
called somewhat cynical in my time and all I could think of, at this point, was
how Bexley council has got Overview and Scrutiny rigged exactly as it wants.
Nothing ever gets properly challenged and any recommendations are duly noted
and pretty much universally ignored.
Brilliant if you are into controlling the political message and agenda with a
massive one party majority. No point wasting council time and effort amending anything
as those in the cabinet and the senior council officers clearly know what they want and come
what may, it will be served up. I doubt the cabinet feels very accountable at all as
they bank on widespread public apathy to permit them to get away with anything.
Whilst
mulling this over I was surprised that Howard Marriner, one of the
Conservative stalwarts, admitted that the Scrutiny and Overview provisions at
Bexley council are just a rubber stamping exercise. “When members vote they do
so knowing the decision has already been made” and little or no time is
provided for discussion and meaningful amendments. Note 3
I always thought that this was the whole point of the exercise but clearly it
does not sit well with all of our elected representatives. Perhaps they just
don’t like to be left out of the fixes and deals that are inevitably concocted
by the Conservative inner circle?
Councillor Alan Deadman bemoaned the fact that with so few opposition members they
are stretched almost to breaking point with all of the committees that they have to
attend. I had some sympathy with him on this. He went on to point out that as there
was only a small minority opposition it was incumbent upon the Conservative members
to hold their own cabinet to account – fat chance given that I have never seen any
of them ever vote against their own side. Their pack mentality is solid!
Deadman
thought that members of the public who were confident enough to approach a Chair of a
Scrutiny Committee should be permitted to ask questions - although, I am not sure that this
met with universal agreement around the table. In a remarkable display of
perspicacity the councillor opined that “the majority party cannot be trusted”. The
man is nothing if not on the ball.
Ed Hammond thought that Overview and Scrutiny is not always the best
way to get the public involved and from this point on I confess I lost a great
deal of respect for him. I wonder how quickly some of these meetings are wrapped
up if the public are not present at all? If they know that nobody is watching
them I suspect they can be much more amenable to each other. Note 4
Another (non) highlight of the evening was listening to councillor John Davey prattle on about
how Bromley council allows Conservatives freedom to vote against their
colleagues. He seemed completely surprised that such a novel democratic notion
was permitted. Clearly he has lived too long in our own stultifying
little borough. He felt that Bromley had some great Overview and Scrutiny practices
but they could produce perverse results. Note 5
His only example seemed a petty dig
that Bromley had refused to partner up with Bexley over some parking matters.
Perhaps Bromley examined the case a little bit better than our lot ever did and
realised that hiking up the parking prices and enforcement only encourages
shoppers away from the borough and off to the free facilities further out. Note 6
Davey then managed to get rather confused about justifying the costs of trips to the
likes of Bromley which bore no relevance at all to the fact that the Committee
was considering the costs incurred by their own meetings only. Duh! Better luck
next time councillor!
The main event so far as I was concerned were the councillor questionnaire
responses and it transpired that 25 Conservatives and two
Labour members had deigned to take the time to share their views on, and
experiences of, Overview and Scrutiny in Bexley. We were informed that
the Labour councillors had decided as a group that they would submit only two
responses, which given the startling results it still produced, showed that they
most definitely missed a trick here. They could have made it so much more
emphatically damning for the Conservative cabinet; but then perhaps they did not
want to overly tarnish the system as they may see themselves running it in a
similar fashion if the tide turns at the next elections.
A 43% response rate was deemed disappointing, so heavens only knows what they must
think of the myriad of Bexley council public consultations that produce nowhere near
this sort of participation level. In actuality the whole affair was largely glossed over
with general murmurings that the consensus is that some changes most definitely
need to be made and that the survey clearly demonstrated the vast majority of
councillors share the views of this sub-group.
Damning stuff indeed! I wonder if that is the sort of sub-group
report that the cabinet will duly note – and of course ignore? I fear that they will do
so at their peril.
I noted the following highlights: 54·2% of the councillor responses indicated that overview
and scrutiny in Bexley with regards to performance review and monitoring was only one
level above ‘not effective at all’. 66·7% thought that the current Overview and
Scrutiny committee structure did not allow for consistent and effective challenge.
74·1% felt that the current arrangements for monitoring recommendations and following
up previously completed scrutiny work is not effective. 84% thought that the Overview
and Scrutiny committee agendas and structure of the meetings could be improved.
Towards the end of the meeting, councillors were talking about dates for future
meetings. The chairman let slip that the leader wants the Conservative Group to
discuss the proposals of Scrutiny Groups before they are finally discussed by
the Scrutiny Group - presumably to ensure that they meet with the leader’s
approval. Councillor Alan Deadman's face was a picture. Why am I not surprised
by that piece of manipulation?
I detect nothing short of mutiny in the Conservative ranks. They really do not like
what the cabinet and senior council officers are at with the current regime. Do those
with the real power appreciate how significant this discontent is? I sincerely hope
not as it will undoubtedly only cause more and more rancour if they doggedly insist
on trying to maintain the status quo. Perhaps all is not perfect in our Bexley utopia after all?
Note 1: The other member of the public present was John Watson of the Bexley Council
Monitoring Group.
Note 2: Councillor Slaughter is too honest for her own good, it’ll
probably be why she
was ejected from the cabinet.
Note 3: Councillor Marriner always seems to be one of the good guys. He’ll never
make cabinet either.
Note 4: Councillor Deadman is one of the few voices standing up for the
democratic process. He has previously expressed his disquiet at the policy of putting
residents addresses on line for no reason.
Note 5: Nick says that councillor Davey prattles. Good job he is responsible for
this report and can resist bad puns.
Note 6: Perhaps Bromley is scared off by what it reads here.
There aren’t many days they don’t drop by.