11 July - The Public Meeting that wasn’t very public
I have had the feeling recently that Bexley Council is seriously short of
talent since the elections in May. It lost Councillors Diment, Gower, O’Neill,
Read and Seymour all of whom had held Cabinet positions and former Committee
Chairmen such as Councillors Dourmoush and Reader plus two or three more with a
lifetime of experience. The new Cabinet has been made up with as yet untested
former Committee Chairmen and in turn the Committee Chairmen positions have been filled in by
relative unknowns; which brings me to last week’s Finance and Corporate Services Scrutiny Committee.
It was Chaired by Councillor Andrew Curtois
(Sidcup) who decided to mess with tradition
and change the format of the meeting. He began by starting the webcast late and
because of that we only know that he favoured “an interactive workshop style
approach” which involved splitting Councillors into three independent groups
operating simultaneously. This rendered webcasting impractical and if
members of the public were present they would be totally unable to follow proceedings.
Andrew Curtois clearly forgot he was supposed to be chairing a
Public Meeting when he effectively closed it to public scrutiny.
BiB hereby elects Councillor Andrew Curtois as its first villain of the new municipal year.
With the webcast prematurely switched off there is little to cover here.
Council Leader David Leaf said that he had already
said most of what he
would have wanted to say at the recent Cabinet meeting. What was left did not amount to
much. There are young people work experience from local schools in the Civic
Offices at present doing “lots of good work and exciting projects”. No one questioned his brief report.
Councillor Caroline Newton, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services also reported.
Yet another Customer Experience survey is underway and the People Strategy is at
the two year stage. She spoke of Leadership Academies, Children’s
Universities and Induction Programmes which may or may not improve the
generally poor calibre of senior staff.
Labour Leader Councillor Borella (Slade Green) made a slightly sarcastic comment about the
Committee being graced by two Cabinet Members before moving on to the Customer
Experience survey he had seen being conducted on Broadway,. Are other areas
being so honoured? The Council Leader said they would be.
Councillor Nicola Taylor (Labour, Erith) put in her usual plea for the digitally
disenfranchised not to be forgotten. She also called for ‘cool hubs’ to be
provided for the vulnerable during the current hot weather. Councillor Leaf said
that was something being worked on.
Councillor Borella said the Committee should look at BexleyCo much more closely.
Ideally its whole business plan should be torn up and started again. The
governance has been “a failure". In terms of affordable and council
housing “it fails the people of Bexley miserably.” The Chairman replied with a rather dismissive “that’ְs noted".
Councillor Jeremy Fosten (Labour, Belvedere) noted that the Performance Indicators said that there
was “a huge slip” in the number of complaints being answered on schedule. The
Council Leader said that the stats will naturally go up and down. Councillor Fosten was asked if he was happy with the answer, and he was.
Councillor Borella made similar remarks about the percentage of invoices paid
within 30 days. Are the targets realistic, some are never reached? There has
been a decline in the number of Member’s Enquires too. The Council Leader
thought that the latter might be election related, Councillors busy doorstepping!
Councillor David Li (Conservative, East Wickham) asked what was being done to improve
the various service deteriorations. Councillor Leaf said in effect, lessons are being learned.
Councillor Sean Brackstone (Reform UK, Northumberland Heath) asked how much
money had bee poured into BexleyCo and how much have they paid back. There was of
course no straight answer but overall a profit is expected. “The Reform Group
has spread quite a lot of misinformation but I hope they will learn and start
telling the truth.” Councillor Brackstone said that if his question had been
answered it might prevent the spreading of misinformation.