Thursday, April 30, 2009

Stunning political leadership?

I have to tell you about a set of "questions/answers" coming up later at today's Full Council Meeting (see item 5.8) ... one of my colleagues, Ewan Aitken, has tabled this set of three queries:


QUESTION NO 8
By Councillor Ewan Aitken to be answered by the Convener of the Education, Children and Families Committee at a meeting of the Council on 30 April 2009

Question (1)
What proposals have been discussed to increase your cuts to youth work sessional hours in the city?

Question (2)
Who have you consulted about these cuts?

Question (3)
What impact assessments have you carried out on the possible effects of your proposed cuts?


--- and here is the answer that Ewan has now received:


Answer
Senior officers are currently preparing a range of options (including impact assessments) to reduce projected expenditure in Community Learning and Development to bring it into line with the approved budget for 2009-10. Sustained and proper examination will be given to any recommendations brought forward.


I'll decipher that for you - "I'm politically in charge of a budget; the Department set that budget back in February 2009 with my explicit political approval; that budget is fixed; and it's now the end of April 2009 and I still have absolutely no idea how we're going to make the savings we agreed two months ago".


Truly stunning.

1 comment:

John Wallace said...

Ah, the keeping of the former Head of Strategy in C&F is now coming back to bite bums, methinks.