23 May (Part 1) - Busy bumbling bees. “Working for you”
It’s all on the council’s website but I don’t suppose they expect anyone to be sad enough to read it all. Shamed by the fact that Teresa Pearce MP had caught me out over the lap dancing issue I’ve waded through the minutes of recent committee meetings to see what else I have missed. Here’s a brief selection…
• Responsibility for “Protection of children from harm” has been transferred to
the Trading Services Department. What do they do? Weigh them, measure their
height and stack them neatly, face up?
• The Health Committee met on 22nd March to consider,
among other things, a report on the Bexley Care Trust. “It was noted that in
some areas the Care Trust had performed well, although in others they had
performed less well.” Wow! That is informative isn’t it, no other details
provided, and it took 13 well paid councillors to come up with that gem.
• On 30th March the Children’s Services and Education Committee met and got in a
muddle over expenditure on consultants. A council officer had to explain that
they couldn’t go by what was listed on the ‘Payments over £500 list’ because
that was unreliable and “not meaningful”. Well done Committee chairman Nigel Betts
for highlighting what my accountant friend has been saying for a long time.
• The Licensing Committee (the chairman is on a bonus of £8,802 a year) met
four times in the last seven months, 11th October (for seven minutes), 18th January (four
minutes), 29th March (where they considered three items including bringing lap dancing
clubs to Bexley by lowering the licence fees and were on their way home again within ten
minutes) and again on 18th May. Hard working bunch aren’t they? Ten minutes every couple
of months. Good job they have a sub-Committee to do the real work.