Gav's View

Adur District Council and Worthing Borough Council are embarking on a pioneering method of governance which will involve our two Councils sharing one Officer Management structure and sharing the provision of services between the two.

The process was initiated when Worthing’s Council was run by the LibDems and is continuing now that the people of Worthing have seen fit to give the Tories a go. So it should be plain-sailing. We should be finding it easy — two Conservative Councils working together. And it is and we are.

But it’s new to me — in Adur we have one LibDem and two Independents. The LibDem has never spoken at Full Council and the Independents are reasonable people who vote according to their beliefs; normally with the ruling Conservative administration. What’s new for me is having an opposition.

Tonight’s meeting was the first Joint Committee of the two Councils that wasn’t the cabinet of Worthing and the Policy Committee of Adur (SEMS). And because of political balances requirements, it was the first committee I’ve had which had an opposition present and able to vote. Tonight’s meeting was on the Redundancy Policy.

The reason I am telling you all this, other than for general interest, is to point out a couple of odd things:

1. This isn’t political point-scoring, but the LibDems really didn’t seem to understand the Officers’ report
2. Worse, when it was obvious they’d missed the point of it, they didn’t ask for clarification from the presenting Officer
3. Worse still, when it came to voting on the Recommendations, the LibDems voted against or abstained despite having, apparently, no objections to the subject matter and having mooted no alternatives during debate

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One has to wonder why they bothered? Their number are too few to change the result without winning the argument, but they didn’t bother to tell the Conservatives what their apparently better idea was. I suspect, though this is me being cynical, they just want to be able to say they were against it if the merger of services goes belly up and redundancy payments are more expensive than we expect, but in whose interest is that?

This and another incident recently at Adur make me ask, out loud now: Do people really know what they are voting for?

I am more worried now than I was last year that I was elected unopposed. It shows a complete apathy on the part of every person in Buckingham Ward who does not normally vote Conservative. But there are other cases where I am sure Councillors would not be returned if their record was scrutinised or if a single member of the public attended a Full Council or Committee meeting.

My concerns over the ademocratic nature of devolution (which has deliberately excluded England),the EU and other issues are going to fall on deaf ears all the time people are voting, year in, year out, for Councillors who don’t work for the people or who are not up to the job. The position of Councillor is similar to the management board of a reasonably large company — we have the Directors reporting to us and we make the important strategic decisions as well as setting policies for the Directors and their reports to act upon. And yet the people who are most affected by Councillors actions are apathetic. They allow sub-standard democracy.

So this is a call to the people: pay attention and watch your Councillors, MP, MEPs and AM (Wales/Northern Ireland) or MSP (Scotland) — it is very, very important.

I may have mentioned this after last Thursday’s meeting but I think it’s worth mentioning as this post is turning into a rant: A member of the public asked what the Council was doing about the proposed closure of two of West Sussex’s three Accident and Emergency facilities. The question was asked in an accusatory way as if all the work on KWASH was being done by someone else. The question was asked as if by being Councillors we weren’t already doing our civic duty to some extent and as if, maybe, it would be helpful if the people did a little more themselves.

That’s unfair: amazing numbers turned out to encircle the two Hospitals with protestors, but it was Councillors and our, apparently tireless MP, who were doing the work there too. It’s such an important issue but I have not been contacted by a single constituent about it — not one.

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Adur, Conservative, Constitution, Democracy, England, English Parliament, English Regions, Lancing, Liberal Democrats, Local, NHS, Politics, Shoreham, Southwick, Tax, Worthing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Gavin Ayling's blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.