This
is almost certainly going to be the last entry on the March blog. It’s
not just because Easter is approaching, though that is a factor, but it simply
isn’t sensible to keep producing stories from very little.
Teresa O’Neill, the leader of Bexley council, has learned a lot over
the past three years. Marching into the police station with a pack of lies
expecting her military wing to
close down all sources of criticism served only to expose her
contempt for the law. Her activities are far more subtle now.
Few will notice that her council has gone into hiding. It is
only a handful of days short of five months since
Bexley council last met in full session with what passes for
scrutiny by the public and the next scheduled meeting is four weeks away. But
councillors still award themselves nearly a million pounds a year for their hard work.
That source of information about council affairs has effectively dried up. So
have other sources. Nothing much gets answered…
• The first question to council
(for April’s meeting) I know of
went in last December. Still unacknowledged.
• Further questions went in in February with requests that the council address the
Data Protection Act aspects of their policy of publishing sensitive personal data on their website. Again no answer.
• The council is still operating with no Constitution available for inspection.
A week has gone
by since they were asked to comment. Nothing! If it was my complaint
I'd send the file straight to Eric Pickles. Sometimes the BCMG is just too reasonable.
•
The Complaints Procedure is bypassed
so that only one man can dismiss a complaint without any possibility of redress.
• Incriminating notes relating to complaints are destroyed before a complaint is resolved. (Not yet fully reported.)
• Forgetting to take minutes at important meetings (the Craske case) and
(conveniently) no one can remember what was said. (Not yet fully reported.)
• The Local Government Ombudsman has still not delivered his final report on
mayor
Alan Downing’s pen jabbing exercise and year old abuse of the aurally disadvantaged. Nothing happens fast.
• The Crown Prosecution Service ‘lost’ all of Elwyn Bryant’s papers on the Craske
affair. The man who was handling the case was transferred elsewhere and the
papers disappeared with him. Elwyn has had to start all over again.
• The police asked last week that nothing new is said publicly about their investigation into
certain obscenities, not that that one matters a great deal because they are
playing their cards close to their chests and there is nothing to say anyway.
You’ll get the idea. Pull up the drawbridge. Say nothing. Hope that critics will
lose interest while quietly racking up
officers’ pay to ensure their loyalty.
Headless chicken syndrome has been replaced by a gang of possums playing dead.
Happy Easter!