Banner
any day today rss X

News and Comment November 2023

Index: 2009201020112012201320142015201620172018201920202021202220232024

11 November - FOIs delay road safety improvements. Really?

Dimitri Shvorob was not satisfied with asking one question, he went for the maximum permissible two.

“What action is planned based on the findings of this year’s survey of road safety arrangements around Bexley’s schools?”

That was one for Cabinet Member Richard Diment. He confirmed that there are ongoing “surveys of traffic volumes, pedestrian crossings, road widths and casualty numbers at 36 sites across the borough and it has already identified where pedestrian crossings would be useful or a request had been received for a crossing to be provided. They are predominately on journeys to school. Work is in progress to develop firm proposals. Residents and emergency services would be consulted. Implementation will be in the Spring or Summer of 2024.”

Mr. Shvorob said this was the first survey in ten years and asked why no schools had been or are being consulted. Councillor Diment replied that “his officers had consulted with all appropriate people” and went on to state that there might have been more progress if they were not distracted by so many Freedom of Information requests and if they had not been made “progress would be far quicker and efficient”.

In July the Council confirmed that most FOIs can be answered in just an hour or two.

There was a question about the building delays at Shenstone School about which I know nothing and the Cabinet Member for Education was absent, so that is a subject for another time.

There was a slightly strange question from a Mr. Browning who was a Labour Councillor up until the rout of 2006. His question asked how many of the photographs in a recent Conservative Party leaflet were in fact Council property. Petty or what?

The Leader said a lot has changed since 2006, among them the use of email and Social Media. “The way photos etc. are used now is much different”. Taking pictures on phones saves money - no photographer to be employed - and when last week Councillor Newton took a picture on her, that is the Leader’s phone and sent it to the Council Press Office, who owns it?

“When the Council Tweets it out and it is shared around, who owns it? Twitter doesn’t say there is copyright on them. The Council often uses our pictures. The Council is producing guidance on who should do what. Technically it [the leaflet] didn’t have copyright on it. It was taken [stolen?] from Twitter and shared but we need to have the debate.”

Whilst this was going on I was furiously Googling on my phone to see if the Copyright laws had changed but they have not. The copyright belongs to the person who took the picture. Leader O’Neill was waffling, from a strictly legal point of view, but at the same time describing what everyone on Social Media does.

If everyone was as pedantic as Mr. Browning evidently is a lot of us might be in jail. Bexley Conservatives, Teresa O’Neill and Bexley Council are embracing the new normal.

I take the view that anything posted on the internet is likely to be stolen and if you don’t like it put a watermark on the photo or otherwise indicate that the owner places a value on it.

Mr. Shvorob gets reprimanded for wasting time with his questions but Mr. Browning did not when his motive could only be to cause party political embarrassment. Politicians do far too much of that instead of getting on with the job.

 

Return to the top of this page
Bonkers is a cookie free zone. Not a single one