Monday, March 02, 2009
The zany world of local government
For those of us who retain a fascination for local politics with all of its petty jealousies, overly-zealous attention to detail at the expense of strategic perspective and the personal idiosyncrasies of individual Councillors and officers, this morning's Western Mail is a real treat.
First off is the case of Caerphilly Council and their sensitivity to criticism. If some journalists never let the facts get in the way of a good story then this is magnified several times over when it comes to political leaflets, and I make no exceptions in that regard. But to call in the lawyers does seem a tad over-the-top.
In this instance a Labour Councillor has distributed a leaflet in his ward which claims that Caerphilly Council had “gambled away £50m of council tax money in Icelandic banks with no hope of getting it back" and asserts that the Plaid Cymru ruling group handled “job evaluation badly, resulting in job losses and a reduction of services throughout the county borough”.
In reply the council say that, in fact, they have £15m of their assets frozen in the Landsbanki and Heritable banks, and claims it is doing all it can to get the money back. The Plaid-led Administration also claims no jobs have been lost, no services reduced and that they acted when Labour failed to tackle the issue of job evaluation and equal pay for women during their four years in office.
So far so good. However, Plaid Cymru will not let it rest there. They want the Councillor concerned to make a full public apology and pay for the production of a new leaflet with the correct information included. They are taking legal advice because they are "fed up" with his "slurs".
Secondly, there is the case of a Cardiff Councillor who criticised his local authority for spending £375,000 last year on council staff mobiles and BlackBerries. Councillor Ramesh Patel, has now been accused of continuing to use a BlackBerry issued to him as chairman of the city’s housing appeals committee even after losing the post after last May’s elections. The Labour councillor spent £287.67 on the email-enabled phone between being asked to return it on July 8 and the day he handed it back on February 9.
Finally, the paper tells us that four local authorities in Wales are continuing to profit from running sunbeds in leisure centres despite commitments from all the councils to work to improve health and wellbeing and prevent ill health. Figures from the Vale of Glamorgan show the council earns around £14,000 a year from its sunbeds, which to be fair would be quite a sizeable hole to plug in any budget.
We are informed that sunbeds have been removed from premises run by Wales’ 18 other councils over the past three years because of concerns about a link between usage and skin cancer.
First off is the case of Caerphilly Council and their sensitivity to criticism. If some journalists never let the facts get in the way of a good story then this is magnified several times over when it comes to political leaflets, and I make no exceptions in that regard. But to call in the lawyers does seem a tad over-the-top.
In this instance a Labour Councillor has distributed a leaflet in his ward which claims that Caerphilly Council had “gambled away £50m of council tax money in Icelandic banks with no hope of getting it back" and asserts that the Plaid Cymru ruling group handled “job evaluation badly, resulting in job losses and a reduction of services throughout the county borough”.
In reply the council say that, in fact, they have £15m of their assets frozen in the Landsbanki and Heritable banks, and claims it is doing all it can to get the money back. The Plaid-led Administration also claims no jobs have been lost, no services reduced and that they acted when Labour failed to tackle the issue of job evaluation and equal pay for women during their four years in office.
So far so good. However, Plaid Cymru will not let it rest there. They want the Councillor concerned to make a full public apology and pay for the production of a new leaflet with the correct information included. They are taking legal advice because they are "fed up" with his "slurs".
Secondly, there is the case of a Cardiff Councillor who criticised his local authority for spending £375,000 last year on council staff mobiles and BlackBerries. Councillor Ramesh Patel, has now been accused of continuing to use a BlackBerry issued to him as chairman of the city’s housing appeals committee even after losing the post after last May’s elections. The Labour councillor spent £287.67 on the email-enabled phone between being asked to return it on July 8 and the day he handed it back on February 9.
Finally, the paper tells us that four local authorities in Wales are continuing to profit from running sunbeds in leisure centres despite commitments from all the councils to work to improve health and wellbeing and prevent ill health. Figures from the Vale of Glamorgan show the council earns around £14,000 a year from its sunbeds, which to be fair would be quite a sizeable hole to plug in any budget.
We are informed that sunbeds have been removed from premises run by Wales’ 18 other councils over the past three years because of concerns about a link between usage and skin cancer.
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I am surprised that the furor at Cardiff Council's budget meeting did not hit the Welsh newspapers!
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