2 May - Full Council meeting. Final formalities
There was little of interest at the Full Council meeting after
the Leader
presented his report but some of the Scrutiny Chairmen like to tell us how well they have done.
Councillor Andrew Curtois was chosen to speak on their behalf and began with “it is with pride that I
present us with something new. At End of Term the Chairmen of the Overview and
Scrutiny Committees want to submit their achievements in a report and I agree to
present it as I believe Finance is a golden thread running throughout, but there
is something that frustrates me more than the Chancellor’s budget as the
Chairman of Financial and Corporate Services and that is the current incorrect
conjecture about Bexley Council’s borrowing situation. Perhaps if people read and
take time to understand these papers they will know the conjecture is wrong and
based on misunderstanding and that the hard work from Officers and Members
allows Bexley Council to balance its books and spend more and more on front line services year after year.”
The Councillor did not say what the conjecture was or where it came from, nor
did he attempt to debunk it with figures. The comment above is the nearest the
Agenda came to a rebuttal.
And that was it, all the Reports from Committees were approved.
Finally the Council approved the appointment of yet another Monitoring Officer.
Monitoring Officers do not last long in Bexley and I have lost count of how many the borough has had since
Mr. Akin Alabi
lost his job in mysterious circumstances. Six maybe?
It must be a very difficult job to do as one
of the requirements will be to lie on behalf of the Council when it gets into one of
its scrapes. Not too many legal officers are keen on doing that on a regular basis
and they soon look for pastures new.
The name of the new Monitoring Officer was not mentioned at the meeting, nor was
it mentioned in the Agenda; in fact the Council in full on
anti-democratic mode voted
in favour of keeping the name secret.
The meeting then moved on to nearly two hours’ worth of telling each other how
wonderful Councillors are. This was first reported on 19th April and it is a blog not yet completed. Twelve
Councillors’ comments recorded for posterity so far with another ten to go. At least one more will be reported later today. Councillor Rags Sandhu.