New arrangements. Same old story (Barnet Borough Liberal Democrats)

Barnet Borough Liberal Democrats <info@barnetlibdems.org.uk>

New arrangements. Same old story

April 25, 2009 1:25 PM
By Cllr Jack Cohen in Hendon Times

Back to work after the Easter break. The Special Committee (Constitutional Review) met on Tuesday to discuss a paper titled "Overview and Scrutiny; New Arrangements "

You may ask why the Constitution Review Committee is called "Special". I'll tell you. I don't know! On second thoughts may be it is because the Committee is made up of the Leaders of the three main parties with the Deputy Leader of the Conservative group thrown in for good measure plus a few more of the good and the great. And, like all Barnet Council Committees, the Conservatives have a majority so the result of any vote is normally a foregone conclusion.

Well we were being asked to consider new proposals to spice up and make more transparent the way in which the Council's scrutiny system works. Labour had come well prepared. They tabled dozens of amendments and because the Labour Group Leader sat next to me I could see that the yellow highlight pen was much in evidence. Perhaps all their industry was a way to distract themselves from the calamitous few days the National Labour Party had just gone through!

As for the Conservatives, well some of them started off complaining they had not received their papers. This under normal circumstances would have been hard to believe but this time the papers had been sent out twice! (The first batch apparently did not make sense!). No I am not making any of this up. I raised a laugh when I suggested there should be an enquiry to discover why only opposition Councillors were sent the papers.

Back to the Labour Group amendments; most of the amendments made sense, but inevitably the Conservatives voted most of them down. The Chairman of the Committee seemed to have discovered a new word "anodyne". He used this on several occasions to nudge the Committee to accept a few of the amendments.

But on the "exciting" amendments the Conservatives resolutely refused to budge. The big issue and the most important if scrutiny is to work is whether the Scrutiny Committees are chaired by opposition members. The Officers wisely stayed out of this and only were recommending that full Council makes the decision. The Conservatives voted down an amendment to the recommendation which would have installed opposition members as Chairs of Scrutiny Committees.

Another recommendation was that the Chairman of Scrutiny Committees should meet quarterly with the Leader of the Council. I suggested these meetings should be in public. Turned down flat; I persisted and I objected that the meetings would be waste of time and just a cosy chat between friends. The Leader agreed with me, and the plan to hold the meetings were quietly ditched.

Any thing else which would have made the whole process more transparent was summarily dismissed. The circus now moves on to the Annual Council Meeting when a final decision will be taken.