I thought it bad enough that most Elected Members first found out about the possible privatisation of 20 Council Services by email, but things just got worse today :-(
Not only was said-report on outsourcing huge swathes of local services approved at the Policy and Strategy Committee this morning - despite our efforts to have it stopped - but inclusion of Elected Members in decision-making took further massive strides 'backwards' when the proposals to close another 4 Primary Schools were given to the Local Press (published circa 10.30am this morning) without Elected Members being given ANY written report on the subject :-((
There was an 8.30am briefing via the Cross-Party Group (which I mentioned before) but no report was handed out and no report is yet up on Committee Papers on-line (CPOL) and it's now very late Tuesday evening?
Summary - Elected Members find out about 4-school closures in the Local Paper and a day after (practically) they still have no written report on the topic?
Worse still, Council Press Officers (that's staff paid from your local taxes) have put out a general News Release on the whole subject.
I'll tell you - openness and transparency have gone down-the-tubes under this Administration --- it's a tragedy that we appear to have a more aggressive "winner-takes-all and to hell with the rest of you" mentality under a proportional electoral system than we had under the previous majoritarian system of election.
The irony is not lost on me :-((
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