You know Liz I can see why these things occur yet it's the extremes they can spill over into. Clearly a full time long serving servant will have an in-depth knowledge and should push for what they feel is correct but there comes a point when they simply have to back off. As ever it's the balance...
I should add… we have had our bins collected through the strike… I dread the strike being over since the bin collectors do not leave litter and are more polite and remove the bin from the garden and return it… the bin men before would not take extra rubbish in black bags, expected a CHRISTMAS gift… the striking binmen should have been sacked months ago.
I questioned officers of the Council about the Council LEADER making a statement about the strike. The reply was odd since the political Council no longer exists once the Election has been called and under two Acts of Parliament no political and controversial statements can be made in purdah, designed to increase the vote of the party in question. The appropriate officer described Councillor Cotton as a councillor, which he is not, and as Leader of the Council, which he was not at the time the statement was made. There are other points I also made, to which I have not had a reply. Once concerned the failure of the legal officer of the Council to examine the recent self certification forms of the interests and gifts of the last Council members, some of which fail to list gifts received and businesses run by members of the Council. It is up to the legal officer of the Council to verify the accuracy of these. I pointed out that I screen save the online forms given at the time and the printed forms for the same year which replaced the hand written forms now online. What concerned me that the previous lists were hand written and the more recent ones online were printed. The two though in some cases were remarkable different for the same year in question. When I questioned the accuracy of these forms and gave examples of how these are inaccurate I was fobbed off by a statement that it is the duty of councillors to be accurate. Now one of the non compliant councillors is standing again in my ward. She is not likely to win. She did not declare any of the 3 companies of which she or her husband own in Birmingham, as she is obliged to do, and run from one of her properties in the City. These details point to the fact that the officers may have been too close to the political leadership for decades. The other question I raised was regarding the selling off of council property. In recent months a number of council properties have been put on the market. Considering this last Council ceased to exist soon afterwards it seemed odd that the last Council was binding its successor to sell off properties that are presently used for the benefit of local people.
In the current local government structure big decisions are made by the Members and implemented by officers. In reality the officers often present reports to Members for the decision which is presented as a fait a compli .Members with the power to scrutinise management and decisions are often have no pre appointment experience of managing anything or anybody, and too often no understanding of basic legal and commercial factors.
Officers often find the best route to career advancement is telling the Members what they want to hear, rather than what they need to know. There are many particularly egregious examples of that in the national domain, just look at Private Eyes Rotten Boroughs every fortnight..
The example you quoted if Birmingham is particularly extreme. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the local government and or employment law press will have watched Birmingham City Council feature regularly over the past 15 years for its failure to address it's equally pay problems regularly ending in legal penalty and compensation becoming payable. As the BCC auditors said I 2023 'this is a mind bogglingly badly run authority '. Both senior officers and Members over many years should have taken responsibility but didn't.
Thanks Howard - There’s a lot in what you say that I recognise. Even in my own time, 1991 to 2005, officers could shape decisions heavily and did not always welcome us Members taking control of key issues. The difference then was leadership. Under Cllr Dick Knowles, Members still had a clear and significant say in the direction of the city, often with cross-party support on major decisions..
What followed feels different. As leadership shifted towards a more centralised, and often more academic model influenced from London, that balance appears to have changed.
But that still leaves the central question. If Members are firmly in control, how does a politically negotiated deal end up in the High Court, followed by a governance review into how decisions were taken? That points to something more than just weak scrutiny.
The issue is not whether officers influence decisions, they always have. It is whether the balance between advice and authority is working as it should. On the evidence, both then and now, that remains open to question.
You know Liz I can see why these things occur yet it's the extremes they can spill over into. Clearly a full time long serving servant will have an in-depth knowledge and should push for what they feel is correct but there comes a point when they simply have to back off. As ever it's the balance...
I should add… we have had our bins collected through the strike… I dread the strike being over since the bin collectors do not leave litter and are more polite and remove the bin from the garden and return it… the bin men before would not take extra rubbish in black bags, expected a CHRISTMAS gift… the striking binmen should have been sacked months ago.
I questioned officers of the Council about the Council LEADER making a statement about the strike. The reply was odd since the political Council no longer exists once the Election has been called and under two Acts of Parliament no political and controversial statements can be made in purdah, designed to increase the vote of the party in question. The appropriate officer described Councillor Cotton as a councillor, which he is not, and as Leader of the Council, which he was not at the time the statement was made. There are other points I also made, to which I have not had a reply. Once concerned the failure of the legal officer of the Council to examine the recent self certification forms of the interests and gifts of the last Council members, some of which fail to list gifts received and businesses run by members of the Council. It is up to the legal officer of the Council to verify the accuracy of these. I pointed out that I screen save the online forms given at the time and the printed forms for the same year which replaced the hand written forms now online. What concerned me that the previous lists were hand written and the more recent ones online were printed. The two though in some cases were remarkable different for the same year in question. When I questioned the accuracy of these forms and gave examples of how these are inaccurate I was fobbed off by a statement that it is the duty of councillors to be accurate. Now one of the non compliant councillors is standing again in my ward. She is not likely to win. She did not declare any of the 3 companies of which she or her husband own in Birmingham, as she is obliged to do, and run from one of her properties in the City. These details point to the fact that the officers may have been too close to the political leadership for decades. The other question I raised was regarding the selling off of council property. In recent months a number of council properties have been put on the market. Considering this last Council ceased to exist soon afterwards it seemed odd that the last Council was binding its successor to sell off properties that are presently used for the benefit of local people.
In the current local government structure big decisions are made by the Members and implemented by officers. In reality the officers often present reports to Members for the decision which is presented as a fait a compli .Members with the power to scrutinise management and decisions are often have no pre appointment experience of managing anything or anybody, and too often no understanding of basic legal and commercial factors.
Officers often find the best route to career advancement is telling the Members what they want to hear, rather than what they need to know. There are many particularly egregious examples of that in the national domain, just look at Private Eyes Rotten Boroughs every fortnight..
The example you quoted if Birmingham is particularly extreme. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the local government and or employment law press will have watched Birmingham City Council feature regularly over the past 15 years for its failure to address it's equally pay problems regularly ending in legal penalty and compensation becoming payable. As the BCC auditors said I 2023 'this is a mind bogglingly badly run authority '. Both senior officers and Members over many years should have taken responsibility but didn't.
Thanks Howard - There’s a lot in what you say that I recognise. Even in my own time, 1991 to 2005, officers could shape decisions heavily and did not always welcome us Members taking control of key issues. The difference then was leadership. Under Cllr Dick Knowles, Members still had a clear and significant say in the direction of the city, often with cross-party support on major decisions..
What followed feels different. As leadership shifted towards a more centralised, and often more academic model influenced from London, that balance appears to have changed.
But that still leaves the central question. If Members are firmly in control, how does a politically negotiated deal end up in the High Court, followed by a governance review into how decisions were taken? That points to something more than just weak scrutiny.
The issue is not whether officers influence decisions, they always have. It is whether the balance between advice and authority is working as it should. On the evidence, both then and now, that remains open to question.
I see your point very clearly. As a former civil servant, I will also say that the same thing may also occur within that system too.......