28 June - New Chairman, new Committee. New approach
The new Resources and Growth Overview and Scrutiny meeting chaired last night
by Councillor Dourmoush (Conservative, Longlands) adopted the same format as
the previous week’s Children’s
and Adults’ Services meeting; a round table designed to exclude members of the
public as much as possible.
Councillor Cheryl Bacon (Conservative, Sidcup) summed things up neatly when the Chairman told her to
switch her microphone on after she failed to do so more than once beforehand. She said
“I thought we were close enough to be able to hear each other”. No thought for
the public or the webcast - if there was one. According to the Council’s webcast
page none has been available since April.
Whilst generally inaudible I was able to make out that Councillor Bacon had been
speaking about senior job vacancies for the previous four minutes.
The HR man Nick Hollier confirmed it was the case and a number of remedies had
been applied including head hunting and offering higher pay. The close proximity
of rival employers, other local authorities, made things very competitive.
Councillor David Leaf (Conservative, Longlands), Bexley’s Jack of All Trades who knows something about
everything spoke on the same subject without adding anything new.
Councillor Daniel Francis (Labour, Belvedere) spoke up for the less well off
residents who are being squeezed ever harder by Bexley Council for money citing
the ratcheting up of Council Tax as the level of relief has been whittled away
in Bexley. He was concerned that the Council was spending more on bailiffs than
the outstanding debts were worth given the small chance of extracting the money.
Naturally he was given an assurance that all was well.
Most of the meeting which ran for only 56 minutes was taken up with a slide presentation,
one by
Mrs. Richardson who is in charge of Growth and Regeneration and another
by Mr. Leigh Whitehouse
who has looked after financial affairs since Alison Griffin was poached by Southend Council.
Councillor Dourmoush wanted Committee Members to take particular note of the following section of the Agenda
so maybe we will see greater scrutiny of Cabinet decisions in future. The last
Resources Scrutiny meeting was held last March, the next is not due until
October and there was, understandably, precious little at this one.
Does the Cabinet ever take any notice anyway?